


a dissertation on the merits of hating your hot roommate

by goon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goon/pseuds/goon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You’re a pain in my ass</i>, Emma almost says, and thinks better of it. Of the two hundred or so days she’s to spend cooped up with Regina Mills, at least one or two might be spent civilly and conjointly ignoring each other. </p><p>(AU: Emma Swan goes to college and gets a roommate).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in June, dropped it (like I did the show tbh), picked it back up in July/August/September, dropped it and started furiously trying to finish it last night. So, if it feels like it's in bits and pieces, it's cause it totally is. Also it's like 100% unbeta'd and silly because I wanted college swan queen so I'm sorry for that too. 
> 
> Other titles considered were: The one where Emma is bad with feelings but Regina is worse.
> 
> Then: Kathryn is smart. Listen to Kathryn.
> 
> Finally: You wrote your thesis on feelings and it was a disaster.

When Emma was given her roommate assignment questionnaire, she’d squinted at it.

Skimming over the blurb at the top of the sheet told her how important compatibility was, the significance a roommate apparently played in one’s college career. Emma had taken one look at the long-ass three page survey and shrugged, sloppily ticking off answers. A B C, rinse and repeat. She was finished in two minutes flat.

Her dearest friend Ruby, who squirmed beside her and opted to read each question carefully, deigning to actually think about her answers, took four times as long to complete her own.

At the time, Emma had grown bored and flicked her pen away from herself, watching it roll slowly off the edge of the table.

Glancing at Ruby in boredom, she could only think, _sucker._

 

_-_

 

Move-in day is a no-go when Granny catches the flu two days before. Emma spends the week filling in a few shifts at the diner while Ruby takes care of her. Once Granny stops sniffling, she all but waves off their worries – “I’ll probably live longer than both of you, combined” – and shoos them off in Ruby’s packed car, so both their roommates have already settled in by the time Emma unloads in front of Mifflin Hall and waves Ruby off.

It’s a bit off balancing, already feeling behind the curriculum despite not having missed much but a speech by the dean and the crowded fervor of move in day. Thankfully, she only has to haul her heavy trunk and backpack up one flight of stairs. She slips her key into the lock and twists the handle, letting herself into room 108.

A pretty brunette scowling suspiciously at her entrance gives her pause, which – _weird_. She gives a small wave instead of saying as much, standard uni keychain dangling from her index finger in the name of goodwill.

“Hey, I’m Emma.”

Silence. Her greeting seems to echo in the small room before one impeccably groomed eyebrow quirks up. Emma really has no interest engaging in what is probably some power play, so they kind of just stare at each other to the point where she gives up trying to show her supposed new roommate how _not_ intimidated she is. Instead, she shuffles from one foot to the other, letting her hand fall back against her hip.

“Emma Swan,” she begrudgingly amends.

“Miss Swan,” her roommate says, sound flat, as if Emma doesn’t deserve the least bit of enthusiasm; it makes her jaw clench.

“I suppose we’re roommates.”

“Uh yeah, I guess we are,” Emma says.

Her roommate blatantly looks her up and down, carefully detached interest offending Emma more than being so obviously checked out, or studied, really, feels more accurate. She shows her teeth, not a smile and not quite a sneer – Emma gets the distinct impression of a cat playing with its food – and coolly asks, “Can I trust you know how to close doors?”

“What?”

“The door, Miss Swan, to our room?”

Emma looks down at the hand still resting on the door handle, blinking at it as if it wasn’t her own. “Right,” she says lamely, before stepping into the room and letting the damned thing swing shut.

The whole _Miss Swan_ thing is throwing her off.

“Good,” her roommate declares, her tone a measure of condescension that makes Emma feel like a bug being squished purposely against the shag carpet of their new room.

Her cheeks tinge red with a bit of anger and a hell of a lot of embarrassment, but she ignores the heat. Instead of leaving it like she usually would – which would feel like letting her win, which Emma, for some unfathomable reason, just can’t let happen – she lets her backpack slip onto the floor with a thump that makes her roommate look up and asks, “So what’s your name?”

An uncomfortable length of silence lingers for such a straightforward question. She bites back a sigh, already beginning to recognize that everything with her roommate will be a challenge, some invariable tête-à-tête over every tiny interaction they’ll have from now until the end of the semester. It might be exciting, if it wasn’t already so exhausting.

Her roommate's head tilts and she finally _, finally_ meets Emma’s eyes. The mounting pressure in Emma’s spine ratchets up at once, filling the room and making her stand straighter.

She states, without inflection, “Regina Mills.”

Well, at least they’ll have a name to go by when they find Emma’s body in a ditch somewhere. “Great, nice to meet you, do you mind if I grab the bed on the right? I like to sleep facing the door and-“

She’s cut off quickly, Emma half expects to be dismissed formally, but Regina only says, “That’s fine. I’ve already unpacked my things on the left.”

“Cool.” _Bitch._

Regina, of course, has already swiveled to face away from her, leaving Emma’s insides twisted with tension.

“Yes,” she affirms.

The dismissal. Emma rolls her eyes and grabs her backpack, hoisting it onto her new bed. She takes out her laptop, pushes off her boots and climbs into bed. The first thing she does when she logs into the floor’s Wi-Fi is take to twitter.

 _Off to a great start_ , she types, wishing sarcasm translated better on the internet.

 

-

 

When Emma wakes up the next morning, it’s to the alarm on her phone vibrating against her hip telling her it’s time for student orientation. Yesterday’s clothes stick uncomfortably to her skin as she squints against the light coming from god knows where, until she realizes the curtains are thrown wide open, bathing the room in what should’ve been a cheerful glow, but instead just gets on Emma’s nerves.

Like _Regina_.

She shakes her head to clear the thought. After all, she only just met her roommate last night and Regina’s certainly gotten an early start this morning, if her perfectly made bed means anything. Plus they exchanged about four sentences worth of what could narrowly be described as _pleasantries –_ not much to chew over. Besides, Emma isn’t the kind to start unnecessary roommate drama, even if Regina was brisk with her the night before. It could’ve been a fluke, moving in gets tiring and tired people get cranky, it only makes sense, right?

Emma squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself out of bed and away from the headache brought on by her absent roommate. She rolls off her single and loudly hits the floor on all fours, the pain in her knees effectively obliterating all thought processes.

After getting acquainted with the frankly gross shared showers on her floor, Emma spends the morning with a group of froshies trailing a third year named Graham. There are activities and games Emma doesn’t really take part in and Graham is kind enough to take pity on her when others try to corral her into joining. He distracts them with fun facts and his accent, sending them off for a themed scavenger hunt before plopping down next to her.

“You’re not much for this kinda thing, are you?” he asks, offering her a bottle of tepid water.

She declines the bottle, but not the conversation. “Never really been great at getting involved, I guess.”

“Really?” he grins at her, warm and open. She can’t help but grin back. “Hadn’t noticed.”

It’s sort of nice. Graham leans back on his elbows against the bench, relaxed and Emma kind of thinks she’s made at least one new friend. That is, until she spots Regina across the quad and her good mood inexplicably drops into a singular feeling in the pit of her stomach she can only describe as _anger_.

It must show on her face, because Graham leans over and gently asks, “You alright?”

She contemplates brushing him off but just says, “Spotted my roommate,” and points to Regina, who’s rubbing the bridge of her nose, apparently exasperated with everyone around her.

“You’re roommates with Regina?”

“You know her?”

“Do I know her? Oh, I _know_ her alright,” Graham says, lowering his chin and smirking. It’s all a bit smarmy even if negated by his charm, but Emma gets it. They know each other, _biblically._

“Doesn’t seem like your type.”

“She’s not.”

Emma shoots him a look. He’s being deliberately obtuse, judging by the sly look on his face. She rolls her eyes but takes the bait, asking, “Am I missing something?”

“You probably don’t know her well enough yet but Regina’s not really the kind of girl you say no to.”

At that, Emma instinctively turns to observe the subject of their discussion, glaring haughtily at a bunch of muscled jocks. Right on cue, as if she was eavesdropping on their conversation, she flips her shoulder length hair back. It’s damned ridiculous, Emma can almost imagine the slow mo - yet seems to be exactly the right move, because a bunch of the guys visibly soften towards her. Emma snorts and has to admit, the girl is stunning – if you’re into sharp, hostile women, that is.

“Sounds scary.”

Graham shrugs, looking with not-quite-not fondness in Regina’s direction. “She’s absolutely terrifying and pretty funny, weirdly.”

“I can’t imagine,” Emma says, so dryly that Graham’s laugh shakes the bench.

“I think you’ll find a lot of things about Regina you never imagined,” he counters, nudging her shoulder and laughing again. They drift off into companionable silence, driven by Emma's inability to respond to something so vague – and dumb.

She watches with a frown as Graham scratches his beard, deciding then and there not to think too hard over some nonsense a scruffy dope she just met spews, even if she already thinks of him as a friend.

 

-

 

Graham invites her to watch his band play at some bar that night, she makes a lame joke – “ _of course_ you’re in a band, you hipster,” – but he only chuckles, completely disregarding her age. Not that they have trouble getting in, with living in a college town and the fake ID’s Ruby’s somehow procured for them and her sweet natured new roommate, Mary Margaret Blanchard.

Ruby goes off gallivanting for drinks once they settle into a little slot against the bar, watching Graham and the Wolves whip the crowd into a frenzy. It’s precisely how she imagined college, whispering and giggling with another new friend as they watch Ruby sweet talk herself a gin and tonic.

Three drinks in and halfway through the set, Mary Margaret comes back from the washroom clutching at the hem of her cardigan, looking as pale as a ghost. Ruby immediately offers to take her back to the dorm. Being the sweetheart she is, Mary Margaret is apologetic even as she looks about to throw up. Emma quickly assures her it’s no big deal.

“Take my jacket, Rubes. You’ll freeze out there,” Emma offers, already sliding her favourite red leather jacket off her shoulders.

Ruby shivers, looking hesitant, her right arm wrapped around a still paling Mary Margaret. “You sure? What about you?”

“I’m gonna stay for a little while longer, I’m sure Graham will lend me his or something.”

Ruby smirks at the mention of him, having goaded Emma about her “newfound boy toy” the entire night. Emma rolls her eyes and throws her jacket none too gently at her friend. Ruby though, catches it deftly and only winks in response, guiding Mary Margaret towards the exit.

Another roll of her eyes and she’s alone, unconsciously searching the room for nothing and something at once. When her eyes land on a head of perfectly styled brown hair, it takes her a second, the haze of alcohol and the flurry of activity surrounding her distracting Emma enough for her to begin sliding through the crowd. It’s not until she’s swaying slightly in front of Regina that she realizes she hadn’t meant to go over at all.

Regina looks surprised, or maybe just offended by Emma’s minor but visible intoxication. Neither of them choose to greet the other, the increasingly tense silence urging a familiar annoyance to grow in Emma and - how does she _do that?_

“Miss Swan, what a surprise,” Regina says coolly, not even attempting to be cordial.

The swelling frustration immediately melts into anger and Emma feels like she’s looking at Regina through a fisheye lens, her ears straining against the hum that’s replaced noise and music. Her eyes narrow and Regina lifts her chin a fraction in response; it’s then she’s sure last night had nothing to do with stress or fatigue, Regina was just a grade A, mean little b–

“Hi, I’m Kathryn.”

Like an elastic band pulled taut and released in the next breath, Emma comes back to herself with a blink; she realizes she and Regina have been glaring at each other for at least 30 seconds now. A pretty blonde she hasn’t noticed before waves at her from across the little round table, thawing the tension into something bearable with a calming smile.

“Hey, I’m Emma,” she replies, taking a step back to ensure she doesn’t get sucked back into Regina’s vortex of evil.

“Miss Swan is my new roommate,” Kathryn’s eyebrows lift in question; Regina’s probably been talking shit about her using only her last name or something stuck-up like that. The same indulgent smile remains, as cheerful as ever, like Kathryn hasn’t written her off just yet. Emma wonders how in the hell someone who seems so nice can stand her roommate.

“Oh,” Kathryn says and unexpectedly, just drops the topic altogether. “Are you here alone, Emma?”

 “Yup.”

“Why don’t you stay here with us? We know the lead singer and we could all have a drink together.”

“That’s really nice, thanks,” Kathryn smiles at her, then positively beams at Regina. Emma figures being invited to sit with them was an elaborate way for Kathryn to tease her. It must work too, because Regina purses her mouth and shifts on her stool, looking more put out than ever. Emma smirks, she likes Kathryn already.

“Graham actually invited me to this thing,” she says offhandedly, before taking a sip from her bottle. She watches from the corner of her eye, trying to catch a reaction from Regina, who remains uninvolved, taking dainty sips of her drink.

“Oh? Are you not a freshman?”                                                                                                                         

“Hmm? Oh no, I am, Graham was my orientation leader and we just got to talking.”

“Sounds like Graham,” Kathryn declares with a playful roll of her eyes. At Emma’s interested look, she continues, “We grew up together. I mean, we’ve known each other since we were kids and stuff and Graham used to throw these silly parties and invite every person he’s ever talked to in his life.”

Emma laughs, feeling a rush of newfound affection for Kathryn, who bounces on her heels with quiet energy. Even Regina looks vaguely entertained as she continues to spin stories of their wild youth together. The tightness at the corners of her mouth disappears, replaced with crinkled eyes that shine through the smoke of the bar. She almost looks like a different person.

It takes three seconds for Regina to ruin the illusion.

She doesn’t even have to say anything, just gives Emma a pointed look when she catches her ogling, though it might as well have been a fluorescent sign that flashed _stop staring_ in neon yellow. Emma’s already got a halfway decent insult to sling at her when someone drapes a heavy arm over her shoulder.

“Nice to see you, Emma,” Graham lets go with a squeeze to her shoulder to lean over and hug Kathryn, who swats playfully at his sweaty arms. He tries with Regina next, only to get an index finger pushed hard against his chest. He snorts like he expected nothing else and says, “I didn’t think you would come together.”

“We just met up by chance.”

Graham lights up. “Now that’s what I call serendipity!”

“And that’s what I call three people being invited to the same event at a small pub, by you, no less.”

“You’re such a romantic, Regina,” Emma deadpans. A giggle escapes Kathryn, who quickly slaps her hand over her mouth. She shoots an impressed look at Graham, watching with rapt delight.

Regina doesn’t deign to respond, just slides off her stool with a dignified little push and drags Kathryn to the washroom without another word. Like winning a significant battle in a ceaseless war, Emma feels a small tug of satisfaction in her chest, though it’s a hollow victory when she’s watching Regina walk away instead of facing her down.

Graham steals her beer just as the girls disappear from sight and takes a good swig; she lets him because it’s gone warm and sticky and they easily settle into nonsensical small talk, jostling each other good-naturedly until Emma mentions, “Kathryn told me you two grew up together? That’s awesome.”

Graham grins that goofy, shit-eating grin of his Emma’s grown so weirdly fond of. “Yup, Regina too. Little Storybrooke, Maine. Her parents practically owned the town, still do, actually.”

“Were you like, childhood sweethearts or something?” Emma asks, unable to keep her face from screwing up as she involuntarily imagines Regina and Graham frolicking through a field of daisies, but Graham just snorts again.

“ _Hardly_ , we barely even talked back then, the only reason we ever saw each other was because she and Kathryn both went to this riding camp thing. I mean, Kathryn and I went to public school and Regina… didn’t. Plus, she already had–“ he pauses abruptly, and something odd flashes across his features, but it’s gone just as Emma tries to read it. “Anyway, I didn’t really think we’d see Regina again after high school and then she comes here. Things happen.”

Before Emma can help herself or question why she would even want to know, she asks, “Preppy private school girl comes to crappy state college, why?”

“You’d have to ask her, Kathryn probably knows, they kept in touch after we left. I always just assumed Regina would go to some Ivy League school and she suddenly shows up here three years late.”

“Three years late?”

“Regina is our age; don’t you think she’s a little mature to be eighteen? Besides–” Graham says, and then wiggles his eyebrows purposefully. “I don’t go out with freshman.”

 

-

 

Regina begrudgingly agrees to walk home with Emma after last call. Whereas only twenty four hours ago Emma would’ve fumed over Regina’s reluctance to walk a whole twenty minutes with her, she’s smart enough to realize by now her roommate’s actually just _that_ bitchy with most everyone – nothing personal.

Kathryn has an apartment with Graham and stays behind while he cleans up his set and collects, leaving Emma to wait for Regina by the entrance after a thank-you-for-coming goodbye hug from the latter and a startling but not unwelcome hug from the former. She watches from a distance as Regina presses a hand against her friends forearm, another one of those soft, open smiles bringing out the lines around her mouth.

Against the dingy stage lights, she looks so human and so like someone Emma would approach, that Emma feels a swell of disappointment. In remote moments, like now, she sees a distinct possibility for friendship. But like Cinderella at midnight, Regina merely points at the clock and breaks the illusion.

“Are you going to stand there gaping all evening or should we go, Miss Swan?” Regina asks tersely, suddenly standing far too close to her. _Exactly_ like that, Emma thinks, before turning on her heel.

Ten cold and quiet-filled minutes later, with Emma clutching at Graham’s huge jacket, it occurs to her that she could maybe say something. The first unchecked thought that flies out of her mouth is, “Why do you call me that?”

Regina doesn't turn to look at her or acknowledge the question, but after a few seconds, says, “I don’t believe in name-calling, it’s juvenile.”

“You know that’s not what I meant, like, why do you call me by my last name? Did you forget my name already? It’s Emma, by the way.”

To no one’s shock, her joke is ignored. Regina gives her a withering look Emma is unfortunately starting to get used to. “We’re roommates, Miss Swan; I knew your name and face even before you hobbled into our room. Late by days, might I add.”

“I didn't hobble or whatever,” Emma counters, before she realizes, “You’re really good at deflecting questions, aren't you?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Are you like secretly seventy five or something? Is that why you talk like you belong in the forties?”

“Not everyone speaks like _they_ belong behind the counter of a fast food restaurant, dear.”

Emma sucks in a sharp breath, clenching her fists. Hysteria rises in her chest at the ridiculous term of endearment Regina’s expertly weaponized, but the sudden awareness that this non-argument could possibly go on forever if neither of them gave makes her relent, “Jesus, lady, just answer the damned question.”

“No.”

 _You’re a pain in my ass_ , Emma almost says, and thinks better of it. Of the two hundred or so days she’s to spend cooped up with Regina Mills, at least one or two might be spent civilly and conjointly ignoring each other.

Her mistake is turning to look at Regina, dark eyes glittering against the wind, hair blown awry; seeming for all the world like Mother Nature had a personal vendetta against her. Emma can’t help the twist of her mouth then, or how she’s suddenly invading Regina’s personal space, or when she just blurts out, “You’re a pain my _ass_.”

Regina doesn’t react but for the curling of her lower lip – and Emma thinks it’s cruel, how she can flex and fade from a pretty girl in a bar to her roommate with the hard smile and the harder eyes – even if she almost looks amused. For the first time that night she deliberately looks at Emma, voice dripping velvet when she drawls, “The feeling is mutual.”

 

-

 

Emma gets less than three hours of sleep in total.

She drops in and out of consciousness the whole night, each time waking to find her eyes on Regina, across the room, in bed. At one point, after staring incessantly at the line of Regina’s rigid spine in the dark in lieu of actually stalking up to her and asking her _what the hell her problem is_ , Emma decides that either Regina is a robot created to torture her into… something or the design of their room makes it empirically impossible for her to actually not watch her roommate.  

When her alarm clock reads 6 AM in angry red, she drops out of bed, throwing on a sweatshirt and getting the hell out of her strangely suffocating dorm room.

She even makes it a good ten minutes before she’s going out of her mind and calling Ruby out for reinforcements, waking her up with a pathetic, “Rubes, save me.”

Once her best friend is capable of coherency, they make plans to meet at some breakfast place. She takes the bus, full of students who are half as awake as she is. Unusually enough, a cat who no one seems to notice stares at her for the entirety of the ride, making Emma shift uncomfortably in her seat. It proceeds to follow her off the bus, which, well great, what is she gonna do? Call the police?

Ruby takes great pleasure in her cat stalker though, feeding it little bits of her croissant after they settle down at a table on the patio. “Don’t encourage the cat,” Emma whines.

“I’m not, I’m feeding him,” Ruby lets the cat eat a berry off her hand. It bends in something akin to a bow, lapping elegantly at her hand. She beams. “Look, he’s saying thanks! What a polite kitty.”

Emma watches the cat weave itself between her legs, rubbing against her shin, imploring her to love it. Unconvinced, she nudges it away with the heel of her shoe instead and says, “This thing followed me off the bus. I think it’s obsessed with me.”

“Don’t call him a thing, Ems. Besides, why did you wake me up at this ungodly hour? This isn’t Boston, we don’t need to wake up early to prep for the morning rush, you know.”

“I just needed to get out of my room.”

“At six am? What’s really going on? Oh my god, are you on a walk of pride? Did you and Graham –“

“It’s walk of _shame_ and of course not!”

Ruby makes a noise of disbelief followed by a questioning look, the one where her left eyebrow tilts at an impossible angle, which makes Emma squirm in her seat, feeling like a liar even if she’s told nothing but the truth. She stuffs her home fries into her mouth and ignores any and all looks of disgust, Ruby should be desensitized to her more repulsive habits by now anyway.

“Seriously, it’s just Regina and I… kinda got into it last night,” she mumbles through a mouthful of food.

Ruby doesn’t miss a beat. “Oh Emma, you should never sleep with your roommate! I made that clear to MM as soon as I could, she’s gonna stop blushing any day now. It’s kinda cute actually. Oh and she owns like, ten cardigans in pastel blue, can you believe it? I mean one I get but –“

At Emma’s dumbstruck look – mouth hanging open, a half chewed home fry hanging perilously over her lip – Ruby seems to pause and reassess.

“So I’m guessing that’s not what you meant?” she says after a minute of that creepy eyebrow thing. With a smirk, she pushes Emma’s chin up to get her to close her damn mouth.

Emma pushes her hand away roughly. “No! Jesus Christ, Ruby! I meant we got into a fight because I basically told her she’s a raging bitch and she was all _‘likewise’_ ‘cause she talks like she’s fucking eighty. I’ve never even had a civil conversation with her before.”

Ruby studies her for a few seconds, chin in her palm. Emma takes the opportunity to stuff a whole pancake into her face. “She is pretty though, in that don’t-come-near-me- _ever_ kind of way.”

Emma almost drops her toast in surprise. Ruby seems to read her mind, lifting her shoulders and tilting her head cutely. “I went on her facebook the other day after you tweeted me. Did you expect me not to?”

The cat Emma’s forgotten about meows in response, agreeing to whatever Ruby’s saying probably because she’s still feeding it, now with food from Emma’s plate. She stares at it with narrowed eyes and laments, “She’s the worst.”

Her plate gets pushed aside and with a dull thump, replaced with her forehead. Ruby _hmms_ in agreement and pets her lightly, comforting and not the least bit patronizing. _So basically the total opposite of Regina,_ Emma thinks, squeezing her eyes shut tight. The cat purrs and rests on top of her foot and Emma wonders if it’s possible for her to get a new roommate assignment three days into her first semester.

 

-

 

She toughs it out, primarily because she’s too lazy to figure out how to get a new roommate.

A week passes without much incident. After dragging her feet back to be given the silent treatment, Emma promptly stays the hell away from Regina, who seems only pleased by this new development.

When she’s brave enough to sneak peeks at her evil cylon roommate however, she sometimes catches Regina looking right back at her, studying her like a scientist would an alien. The whole thing aggravates her to the point where she almost wants to throw a pen at her roommate – might as well, considering how Emma is sure Regina is efficiently cataloguing her findings, discovering new and innovative ways to exploit her weaknesses.

For example:

“You snore,” Regina notes out of the blue. Emma tears away from her essay. Not having really spoken except for stolid pleasantries in three days, a stunned silence follows in which they make extended eye contact – her, wide-eyed and unmoving and Regina, eyebrows raised and thoroughly unimpressed.

“What?” She asks dumbly.

“You snore,” Regina repeats, back to staring at her computer screen, typing purposefully and without break.

Emma gapes, “I _do not_ snore.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Prove it.”

“Am I supposed to videotape your incessant wheezing like some lurker? No. Get yourself some breath right strips, Miss Swan,”

“So now you’re interested in my health?”

Regina tilts her head back and scoffs, “I’m interested in my sleep.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

Emma squints, the conversation so reminiscent of their first that it makes the embers in the pit of her stomach flare into fire.

“Exactly,” she snaps, immediately cooling some at the satisfaction of having the last word. She almost congratulates herself too, until she lifts her head and catches Regina’s eye, which means Regina’s looking at her, and with a look of contained _something_. A twitch in her left cheek blooms into an ugly smirk, until she believes their eye contact’s sufficiently demoralized Emma.

Instead of the gratification building in her chest, Emma’s left feeling childish.

 

-

 

The cat reappears soon after. She’s walking past the alleyway with the busted lights – the one that gives her the creeps, when it steps out from behind a trash can and trots alongside her, following her to and from class, then disappearing just as she steps into the lobby of her building. It happens again, and again, and again, until eventually Emma just kind of lets the cat shadow her without wanting to punt it like a football.

She kind of grows fond of him too, starts feeding him when she suspects he might be her good luck charm, because every time the cat is near, Regina is nowhere to be found. Of course, it’s not as if they bump into each other often outside of essential shared space, it’s just – well, they have, bumped into each other.

She’s grabbing lunch alone, ditched by Ruby and Mary Margaret for some dorm hall emergency when she hears her name being called. Emma’s already scowling as she spins around to Graham artfully slung over the back of Regina’s chair, waving a fork he looks ready to throw to grab her attention.

“Emma, over here!”

Her grimace deepens even if it’s not Graham’s fault he doesn’t know she spotted them a good ten minutes ago and has been trying to gracelessly avoid them for another five.  It’s also not his fault the sight of his arm curled over Regina’s shoulder makes her uneasy, but she gets a little angry all the same and plasters on a smile only because Kathryn is cheerily waving her over.

Without much choice except a potential friendship-wrecking escape act, she marches over while peering covertly at Regina, who is doing what she does best, simultaneously doing jack shit and appearing as if it’s more important than anything Emma ever hopes to achieve in life; right now, it’s avoiding chitchat by sipping slowly at a cup of coffee.

“Emma, hey! How’s it going? Come, sit,” Kathryn welcomes, patting at the seat next to her until Emma slips into it, lining her up directly across from the bane of her college experience. They make eye contact, but Regina only assesses her carefully and without an ounce of good humour.

It makes her spine straighten in her chair – an obvious enough shift for the muscle at the corner of Regina’s mouth to tic, something Emma’s recently noticed corresponds to her level of discomfort; a full blown smirk for the price of her embarrassment. She distracts herself by fully engaging Kathryn, eager to get away from Graham’s arm and Regina’s glower.

She couldn't possibly have known her roommate would take it as some kind of challenge.

She’s in the middle of a _riveting_ conversation about hair products when Regina interrupts (rudely might she add) with a feigned, casual: “You certainly are an early riser, Miss Swan,”

Emma almost moans with frustration, because the thing is, Regina never just says anything, and Emma’s learned that no matter the nonchalance Regina likes to wrap her statements in, whatever comes out of her mouth is always gifted with intent. Emma almost thinks she may be reading a little too much into it, taking her English elective a little _too_ seriously, when Regina leans in just that little bit more, her elbows sitting on the edge of the table, too close to Emma for her to read this as anything less than threatening.

She’s sure she's busted then, but didn't think Regina would however subtly mention the fact that she’s been determinedly avoiding her roommate since her phone call with Ruby. It’s not like they talked all that much before Emma started consciously _not_ talking to her.

And it’s not like Regina had a problem with it, as long as she got her petty shots in once or twice a day, except now Emma counts to ten in her head and plain refuses to participate. This all-embracing version of indifference is nothing like an attempt to bruise Regina’s ego – but Regina’s probably got this sinister idea of why Emma’s been taking pains to _not be_ in the same room as her, like she’s plotting murder or casting a spell, when the actual reason is a lot less ominous and just really awkward.

She’s got a crush, is all.

Kathryn prods her shoulder with her own, like she doesn't notice Regina and Emma practically sharing a breath and says, “Regina was just telling us how she’s found someone who gets up earlier than her, never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, early riser, that’s me.” She rubs at the back of her neck, desperate to steer the conversation away from wherever Regina was trying to drive it to. Probably off a bridge.

“To be honest, I just like to get to the dining hall first; you get your pick of hot breakfast food nobodies picked at yet,” Emma explains. A convincing enough lie, especially since she simultaneously stuffs a taco into her mouth. It certainly makes Regina lose interest, particularly when Kathryn and Graham start laughing, teasing her for her honesty.

Regina’s mouth sets into a thin line when Emma starts a distraction-cum-discussion on the merit of hot versus cold cereal with Kathryn, whatever it was she wanted to say thankfully locked away for now. She leans back into Graham’s forearm and he makes quips about oatmeal as a contender against cereal while tracing little circles on the bare skin of her arm, which she either doesn't notice or firmly ignores.

The familiarity of it mesmerizes Emma, even as her heart plummets directly from its rightful place behind her lungs into the acid rising in her stomach.

 

-

 

“You know what, Ems?”

“What?”

“I think I've figured out why you hate Regina Mills so much.”

“Because she’s annoying and rude and constantly gets on my nerves?”

“No.”

“Because when we’re not ignoring each other, we’re arguing like two eleven year old girls? Most of the time I forget what we’re even arguing about.”

“No.”

“ _Ruby_.”

“I think you’re jealous.”

“Ruby, I know it’s part of the college experience but lay off the crazy sauce for a while, would you?”

“Listen, _Emma_ , you’re jealous of her. Her and Graham, you totally have a thing for him and it’s making the green eyed Emma in you hate her; I mean I’ve never seen you act like this or talk about someone this way before. It’s the only explanation.”

 

 

“ _Oh_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Titles considered for this chapter were: Oh, thy melodramatic teenagers!
> 
> And: Is that cat a metaphor for your feelings?
> 
> Finally: You didn't listen to Kathryn and now you're sad.
> 
> PS. Thank you for all your lovely comments and kudos (and very sorry for constantly changing the length of this fic. It like, won't make up it's freaking mind)! I love you dearly for sticking around this silly little thing. Please feel free to correct any and all mistakes you find 'cause most of this was written like 5 months ago on a white wine buzz. Like, college kids, amiright?

Emma’s avoiding Regina like the plague by their second month of cohabitation.

It’s simple when she only has to memorize Regina's schedule and set all her watches an hour forward. Emma’s out of bed to grab breakfast at an ungodly hour on most weekdays, tip toeing past a sleeping Regina – whose alarm rings at exactly seven thirty five every morning – and back before eight pm after class. And she’s in bed before ten every night to evade speaking to Regina when she breezes in at eleven sharp every night.

(Afterwards, Emma will realize her downfall was in her complacency, but at the moment all she’d wanted to do was chill out at the library until Ruby arrived for their study session.)

She swears to Granny (which she would _never_ do, and yet) a chill runs down her spine when she walks into the usually empty back corner of the library expecting the last free table, only to find Regina hunched over a spread of textbooks.

One look at all that coiffed brown hair and she’s back tracking the hell out, bumping right into a girl who screams for her to “ _watch it_!” complete with dirty look. Of course there’s no point in hiding then, Regina is already watching her, glasses Emma didn’t know she owned or needed sitting precariously on the tip of her nose.

The look is not exactly… unpleasant, especially considering Emma’s bizarre thing for black rimmed glasses, stemming from–

“Miss Swan.” Regina drawls, all quiet and fury, chasing away Emma’s totally arbitrary observation.

“Hey uh, how’s it going?” she says, swallowing the excessive saliva in her mouth. The way Regina refuses to break eye contract _ever_ always makes her feel like the spotlight’s been dropped onto her – physically and metaphorically.

“It’s going well, thank you. Have a seat.”

“Oh I’m actu –“

“I insist,” Regina asserts, in a tone that brooks no argument. If a few others in the room weren't already looking annoyed, Emma would be ready to start a fight about being treated like a child. Instead, she just glares and drops down opposite Regina.

“I think you've been avoiding me.”

“I hav –“

“Are you honestly going to continue embarrassing yourself?” Regina asks sternly.

Burning frustration Regina seems to string out of Emma without effort pools in her chest, down to her stomach. “Well, if you maybe stopped cutting me off, you would get a better explanation,” she bites back.

Regina smiles deliberately, low and dirty in a way that makes the liquid in her stomach burn hotter, because every time she makes Emma lash out is another hold of control Regina will lord over her for-fucking-ever. “I don’t want to waste my time listening to you dribble on and on.”

“Excuse me miss hoity-toity, what makes you think I even want to talk to you?” she counters, leaning across the table despite herself.

Regina matches her inch by inch by inch and it’s just like her, to continually invade Emma’s personal space. “You’re sitting here talking to me right now, dear,” she taunts through gritted teeth. Her breath hits Emma’s cheek and makes her angry. It smells like apples, which is dumb, ‘cause she loves apples and _hates_ Regina.

“You forced me to sit down!”

“I did no such thing.”

They’re virtually nose to nose, Regina’s breath hitting her hard and quick. She can taste apples in her mouth, her hands flexing for something to pull at, push against, the lapels of Regina’s blazer itching to be caught.

As she’s about to do something really stupid, a loud yawn cuts through the haze that separated her from reason. Emma pulls back quickly, coming to her senses like coming out of a fog, disoriented and wondering how the hell she got from point A to point B. Regina mirrors her, albeit more steadily and without shaking hands, like they weren't actually three seconds away from a fist fight.

“You’re a real piece of work, lady,” she breathes, trying to get a hold of herself, of the need to run her hands across Regina’s neck – and strangle her into congeniality.

“You haven’t answered my question, why are you avoiding me?

“ _I’m doing no such thing_ ,” Emma mimics, mostly to annoy her.

She hears more than sees Regina take a sharp breath, her eyes narrowing. She leans against her textbooks again, closing the distance Emma explicitly put between them. “Really? You just so happen to leave exactly thirty five minutes before me every morning? And be in bed before I come back every night?”

“I’m a creature of habit,” she fibs, only slightly surprised by Regina’s attention to detail.

“I highly doubt it.”

Emma's whole body is so tense she can barely breath and she's seriously had enough of being interrogated.

“ _Why do you even care_?” Emma hisses.

Regina stills, clearly not expecting the question, if any. Her mouth opens and closes repeatedly, like a fish gasping for water, as if she wants to say something,but can’t formulate a response. Emma always thought Regina’s speechlessness would come with some inordinate amount of satisfaction but finds she’s more curious for an answer than she knows why. Everything is just confusing her and fueling her anger.

“I –“

“You know what? It doesn't fucking matter,” Emma snaps. She wants to be a million miles away from here, from Regina and her questions and her eyes and her stupid fucking mouth.  “It’s been real, Regina, see you when I see you.”

She leaves, and Regina definitely does not call her back.

 

-

 

It’s not so difficult to avoid Graham.

He’s a third year, which basically means she’s got no classes with him and excepting some half-hearted text messages plus an awkward trip to return his jacket (thank heavens Kathryn opened the door), she hasn't seen or contacted him since the cafeteria. It’s good, _very_ good, because Emma’s got no interest in pursuing this weird thing made aware by Ruby’s unrelenting analysis of her love life. She's resisted her feelings as well, not giving them a second thought, because she’s of the philosophy of not beating dead horses, and she’s absolutely not going to try to steal her roommate’s boyfriend. Despite what Regina thinks, she’s not _that_ stupid.

The point is, she stops running her life in circles around her roommate’s schedule, stops (she’s only realized now) acting like she did something wrong, which evidently gave Regina reason to suspect her of foul play. It's why she’s still awake past ten, typing away at her desk, trying to act nonchalant enough to demonstrate just how much she’s not playing Regina’s stupid mind games - even though she kind of is, not that anybody has to know. As expected, the door unlocks with a click smack dab at eleven and Regina waltzes in, like she’s lady gaga with an entourage at her beck and call.

Emma does her best to concentrate on her essay even when the shuffling stops, Regina having paused in the doorway, probably wondering if Emma’s trying to prove something by sitting at her freaking desk like a normal college student. There's no way she’s going to look and make this one of _those_ things, no matter how tempting. So when the door swings shut and Regina continues to ignore her, she breathes out in relief.

The respite is short lived. Regina clears her throat, tensing every tired muscle in Emma’s body with a scratchy, “You’re awake.”

Still typing, she keeps her eyes focused on her screen, though the last few sentences are complete gibberish, it’s the impression of normalcy that counts. She says as evenly as she can, “Yeah, got this essay to finish.”

Her answer, or answering at all, seems to mollify Regina, who hums softly in response and glides – freaking glides from Emma’s peripherals to her bed and forefront. Emma idly wonders if whoever set up the floor plan to their room had a thing for mirror images, because their beds and desks and drawers are all set up opposite each other.

Or maybe it’s just the most efficient use of space. Whatever, it’s _annoying_.

She shakes her head, forces herself to stare harder at the glowing words, paying no attention to the blue blob, – one of Regina’s many blouses, Emma figures, and what kind of college student wears blouses anyway? When the splotch changes colour, Emma looks up out of inherent curiosity, only to catch an eyeful of Regina’s back.

It shocks her enough that she freezes and stares even as Regina continues to strip, uncaring of Emma being _right freaking there._ Her slacks are next to go, slid down over long legs, folded and placed over that stupid blouse on her bed.

Then it’s just Regina, wearing absurd black lingerie, looking like she’s just stepped out of a Bordelle catalogue and Emma’s dry mouth, and dry throat.

Without preamble, her eyes trail from Regina’s shoulder blades down, an odd collection of faint scars against her hip hidden mostly by her underwear, making Emma lose track of time for just a little while, until expanses of smooth skin abruptly disappear underneath a pair of silk pajama pants and an accompanying button up.

Emma turns away sharply just as Regina delicately places her clothes into the hamper against her desk. She just knows she’s blushing, and probably furiously at that. The chair across from her pulls away with a squeak and Regina slips behind her desk. If she notices Emma’s impression of a tomato, she either ignores it or chooses not to comment.

A few minutes tug by with only the muted sounds of fingers against keyboards before an entirely uncomfortable Emma chances a glance at Regina. Her eyes are glued to her screen as always, but the muscles at the corner of her mouth are tight. It’s not quite the smirk Emma’s come to expect from her roommate, in fact, it grates more on her than any previous incarnation of the expression.

Not only is it smug and condescending, like she’s won some grand prize, it also implies that she’s figured it all out, secrets of the universe in the palm of her perfect hand.

Emma isn't sure which possibility scares her more.

 

-

 

Something is changing; Emma just has no clue what it is, or how to stop it.

Like, she opens the door and Regina is there – she’s suddenly everywhere and that’s another thing Emma hasn’t figured out, yet – leaning against their adjoined desks, cuddling her cat. Emma blinks, hand still wrapped around the door handle.

“That’s my cat.”

The fur ball flicks his tail at her and purrs in Regina’s arms, to support her statement or refute it, she’s not sure. She’s also not sure when she decided the cat understood human talk. Regina’s brow furrows. “No, he’s _my_ cat.”

“Actually, I feed the kid every day and he follows me around like he imprinted on me or something so uh, I’m pretty sure he’s mine.”

“Miss Swan, I’ve had Henry since he was a kitten. I have his birth certificate, I have his vaccination schedule, and he is certainly _my_ cat.”

Regina stares hard at her, letting the subject of their debate jump down from the cradle of her arms. He lands on all fours and weaves through her legs before scurrying over to Emma, rubbing himself against her shin. It’s one hell of a mixed message.

“Henry?” She bends to one knee and tickles his ear, the way she’s learned he likes. She doesn’t have to look up to know she’s being glared at. “Really? That’s not even a cat name,” she adds, startled by the warmth of her own voice, not spiteful but amused. Of course, only Regina would name a cat Henry – _honestly_.

“It’s no wonder he’s been gaining so much weight recently,” Regina surmises, still frowning suspiciously. “And Henry is a perfectly respectable name.”

“Yeah but not for a cat.”

“Henry is a dignified feline.”

Emma almost laughs at the look of pride Regina directs at Henry the cat but manages to choke it back, knowing full well Regina would take it the wrong way. However, she doesn't stop the helpless, charmed smile from forming as she shakes her head. “Did you just – oh god, we’re not having this conversation.”

“Healthy discussions strengthens the mind, even if the topic is over your head,” Regina says, accompanied by an inscrutable expression that looks an awful lot like the beginnings of a smile. “That’s how you learn.”

Dumbstruck by what Emma’s pretty sure is teasing – one can never tell with Regina Mills – her would-be gratifying reply turns into a dumb, sputtering, “I’m not – hey! Shut up!”

Evidently pleased with her reaction, Regina lets a little smile pull through, the crinkling near her eyes giving way to the soft-lit woman Emma remembers fondly from the bar. In her presence, Emma relaxes considerably more than she ever has with her roommate near. The tense aggression usually lingering in the air charging the combative nature in both of them is absent for once, perhaps because neither has tried to gain the upper hand.

The lack of tension between them is so refreshing that Emma suddenly understands what Graham said to her on initiation day. Of course, the thought of Graham at all seizes Emma right up and she looks awkwardly at her roommate, immediately guilty. Ever perceptive, Regina seems to sense the change and straightens her spine the slightest bit, going from relaxed to positively royal in less than a flash. Emma practically sees her constructing walls where there were none seconds before.

She doesn't know how to stop the good mood from evaporating, so just says in haste, “So why is Henry here?”

“He was staying with Graham and Kathryn because of a ludicrous rule about pets in the dormitories. Their neighbour found out and told their landlord, Graham never bothered to find out whether they were allowed pets either. They aren't,” Regina clarifies flatly, as aloof as if this was their first meeting – except, even their first encounter was filled to the brim with resentment.

Indifference is so much worse than hatred, Emma realizes then, she resents being ignored.

So she gets irritated, and fast. “And you brought him over assuming I’d be okay with harboring your fugitive _feline_ and you?”

Regina bristles and says, “ _Do_ you have a problem? I’ll have you know that Henry is very independent. He’s always been an adventurer and prefers the outdoors, if you think he would be a nuisance, you’re wrong.”

“Hey, I have no problem with the kid; he’s been following me around for ages. It’s the whole I’ll-break-dorm-rules-without-consulting-my-roommate thing I have a problem with.”

Refusing to be intimidated into submission, Emma matches Regina’s stance. As has somehow become custom without conscious choice, they press slowly into each other’s personal space, the distance between them a measure for their patience.

“Well then, I’ll apologize.”

Emma stops short of stepping on Regina’s toes and rolls her eyes. “Please Regina; you’re embarrassing me with the sincerity of your apology.”

“I’ll buy you dinner,” Regina offers stiffly.

“Dinners, you mean,” Emma fires back.

Propriety be damned, Regina presses further into her, literally, as they’re chest to chest. The unmistakable scent of apples rushes over her again, distracting her, making her lightheaded. “Don’t push me, Miss Swan.”

“A month of dinners, breakfast, and call me Emma. Jesus.” Emma has enough sense to respond, even if she’s close to losing it and using her fists to answer.

Regina considers her options for a moment, persisting in her maddening habit of never breaking eye contact. She thankfully takes a step back, yet Emma still flushes an embarrassing red by the time she finally says, “Two dinners a week for a month. Coffee. And no.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Exactly.”

 

-

 

They hide Henry’s litter box against the inner corner of Regina’s desk, a slit left in the window for him to leave and enter of his own accord. He’s not around as much as Emma would've thought, preferring nature to a stuffy square room. Twice Emma forgets their new arrangement and shuts the window on him, to which Regina always reprimands with a clipped, “You’ll do well to remember Henry prefers the outdoors but does not _live_ outdoors, Miss Swan.”

Emma usually just ignores her, apologizing to Henry and giving him extra cat treats behind his owners back. She kind of loves having a pet too, even if Regina constantly reminds her that for all intents and purposes, Henry is _hers_.

What makes the arrangement tolerable, of course, is the free food.

Until Regina ruins that, too.                                                                                                                                     

“Up Miss Swan, we’re going to dinner,” she orders a few nights after Henry’s settled in. By the time Emma gets her face out of her pillow and the hair out of her mouth to respond, Regina’s already buttoned up her charcoal grey pea coat, looking like J Crew sponsored her rise to American Royalty.

“Why? Just grab me something from the dining hall, a burger thanks.”

“I’m not your food jockey. You either follow me and sit at a real table with real utensils like a civilized person or you sit here like a brute and starve,” Regina states, hand firm on the doorknob. She looks down her nose at Emma, silently but smugly daring her to either haul ass or lose a free dinner. Emma doesn’t want to do either, so instead whines, “We had a deal!”

“The deal was free dinner; I am not a delivery service,” Regina intones, enunciating her words sharply as if Emma was particularly dense, twisting the knob without pulling at the door. _Queen of the silent threat_ , Emma thinks. In some sort of cosmic response, Regina smirks. “You should’ve been more specific.”

Now familiar with Regina’s deep love for frankly hollow dramatics, Emma only rolls her eyes and shifts off her bed, whipping off her soft cotton shorts in exchange for the skin tight jeans hanging over her chair. After Regina’s little incident, Emma’s had no qualms with changing in front of her roommate, ‘cause if Regina can do it, then hell, she can do it better.

“God, you’re annoying,” she declares loudly, because Regina is _such_ a drama queen.

The subject of her ire doesn’t even bat an eyelash, but also doesn’t have the decency to look away, appraising her like she’s some expert on antique roadshow and Emma an ancient but worthless collectable. A month ago, it would’ve been enough to stir her anger, now it’s only a typical Regina-response deserving of a typical Emma-non-retaliation. Anyway, she’s pretty sure Regina’s face is just like that.

She doesn't know why then, when Emma meets her at the open doorway, that Regina looks her up and down, throws her a flat, “Yes, well, you’re lazy,” and lets the door hit Emma on her way out.

 

-

 

They end up at some skivvy looking dive because Regina tries to take them to an out-of-the-way restaurant that caters specifically to snobs. Emma insists on her right to choose the location once Regina utters the word “snail”, bodily dragging her with fingers firmly attached around an elbow. Surprisingly, she doesn't fight back much, though Emma plays it safe and keeps the same hand wrapped around a wrist until they’re settled at a table. Just in case.

“I promise the food is better than the décor,” she says, watching Regina purse her lips as she studies the menu. Without hesitation, Regina tells her, “If I contract some sort of disease while dining here, you’ll receive a bill in the mail.”

“Was that a joke?”

Regina drops the plastic onto the table with a snap. It’s not as effective as it’s meant to be, because Emma is already paying full attention to her, her own menu lying untouched under her elbows. Regina draws forward, and like sharing a secret, says in a low voice, “Did it sound like a joke to you?”

“To be honest? Most of the stuff you say is pretty funny.”

Regina sighs and leans back, all signs pointing to exasperated. Emma knows it’s mostly for show, considering the smile Regina almost can’t contain. She shakes her head. “You’re impossible.”

“You’re no picnic either, lady,” Emma fires back, grinning like an idiot.

Unfortunately, a waitress interrupts them with glasses of water and an offer to take their orders before Emma can watch Regina lose the battle against _not_ frowning. It certainly gives Emma a goal for the night, to turn on the Swan charm and let Regina really enjoy her company, for once.

Naturally, Regina orders a salad while Emma goes for a burger, and they’re both sort of grinning for reasons that totally escape Emma. Regina sips her scotch, making Emma want to ask her how old she _really_ is, twenty one or a hundred and one? She’s pretty proud of herself for refraining.

“Look at us, getting along,” she announces, digging into a bread basket Regina only looks disdainfully at.

“The night’s still young, Miss Swan,” she throws back.

“Seriously, what can I do to get you to call me Emma? Clean Henry’s litter box for a month? Buy you lunch for a year? Give you my first born child?”

“If you’ll stop badgering me then I’ll consider giving you the honour,” she drawls, and it’s not unkind, not at all, the words drained of their venom by the way her lips curve up.

Emma blinks, staring hard at Regina like she’s just figured out the last word in a particularly tough crossword puzzle, her smile growing wider and wider ‘til she just cracks up.

“Are you having some sort of episode?”

“You _are_ funny,” Emma says, wiping at her eyes. Regina’s blank look prompts her to append, “Someone told me you were funny once but I didn't believe them, I totally get it now.”

Regina crosses her arms but doesn't seem to take offense. If one raised eyebrow means anything, she might actually be… teasing. It warms a place inside Emma’s chest – or it could just be the beer, or something. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t believe that to be a compliment. You probably think the epitome of humor is a primate riding a bicycle.”

“Monkeys on bikes aren't funny, Regina,” she snaps.

The abrupt change in her attitude startles Regina into physically leaning back, clearly not expecting Emma’s temper to manifest itself so suddenly. Especially since they've been exchanging barbs for days now without angry conclusions, almost like teasing each other, bickering in a way that’s been more fun than anything else.

Emma mirrors her, then smiles – that shit eating grin getting Regina both to visibly relax and glare in irritation. Smug as can be, she says, “But monkeys on unicycles, that shit is comedy _gold_.”

A pause in which Emma smugly sips from her drink and Regina’s eyes slowly narrow, then, “You’re _insufferable_.”

Emma laughs, pointing her beer bottle at her roommate. “ _That_ was a joke and you’re infuriating. I thought we went through this already?”

“Yes, and for the sake of Henry’s well-being – since he’s taken such a shine to you – I’ll keep from trying to suffocate you in your sleep.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Emma shoots back, thoroughly enjoying their game of one-upmanship. “Speaking of, you don’t seem like a cat person. Actually, you don’t seem like a living creature kind of person.”

Regina falters at that and looks away, taking a deep drink of her scotch. Emma clutches her bottle hard, _they were doing so well_.

“Henry was given to me,” is all Regina says. The way her voice drops an octave and dips leaves Emma cold.

At a loss and bereft of the understanding to deal with whatever is unfolding in Regina’s answers, Emma tries to bring them back with her usual method, by provoking. “That’s it? You can do better than that,” she sing-songs.

It works just as expected, because Regina’s eyes immediately narrow, burning with displeasure and not with the dead distance of before. “Stop trying to goad me, dear.”

“I’m just trying to make nice with my roommate.”

Another long but not uncomfortable silence has Emma under Regina’s intense scrutiny. She feels as if she has to prove herself, show Regina she is worthy of whatever secret is hanging invisible in the air. Meeting her gaze dead on with the intent of just that, Emma discovers only one thing; Regina’s eyes are _incredibly_ brown. Emma is so engrossed her mind can’t seem to conjure up the cheapest of metaphors, all she can really think is _wow._ Eventually, Regina lowers her eyes and Emma pulls back, realizing she’s been caught in trying to decipher the colour of Regina’s irises without thought.

Quietly, so gently that Emma almost misses it altogether, Regina says, “He was given to me by someone I care about.”

“Graham?” Emma blurts out, almost slapping herself for it because _really, Emma?_

To her shock, Regina doesn’t admonish her for prying, just looks away again, eyes glazing over. “No, someone who’s passed away,” she says, as softly as before.

“I’m sorry,” Emma mutters, because she is and because she can tell from the way Regina won’t look her in the eye that this is something exceedingly close to heart. Oblivious to her apology, Regina remains silent; blinking slowly at the tea light set between them, lost in a memory Emma wants to put her hand into and pull her out of.

“In the name of sharing,” she starts, kindly. Regina’s eyes remain glassy, Emma can’t be sure she even hears her but goes on anyway. “I’ll tell you something about myself. I’m adopted.”

Slightly widened eyes flicker to meet hers across the table. Regina looks both startled at her willingness to share such private information and curious about her situation, politely so, her good manners preventing her from outright gawking. She takes it for what it is: an olive branch, a diversion, and friendship.

The grateful smile Regina gives her is different this time. Emma can’t quite put her finger on it, but knows it’s bright and wide and really damn pretty. “That’s it?” she repeats, not quite as haughty as she’s wont to be, not quite able to match the lightheartedness of Emma’s version either, but it’s good enough. “You can do better than that.”

Emma matches Regina’s smile with her own, glad to reestablish Regina’s terrifying eye contact, even gladder to see _the_ smirk grace her red, red lips.

“Well, I was a foster kid for a few years until Granny – technically my foster mother, I guess – came along and took me in. I have a foster sister too, her name’s Ruby Lucas, you’ve probably seen her around campus.”

Regina hesitates as most people would at Emma’s seeming nonchalance about her past, but recovers quickly. Following Emma’s line of dialogue and wracking her brain for a Ruby, she thinks of flashes of fire engine red and a toothy smile.

“Pretty, red highlight, constantly bears her midriff and wears shorts too short to be anything but glorified underwear?”

“That’s my girl.”

A derisive, “I see dreadful dress sense runs in the family,” is followed by a very pointed look.

Emma can’t help but laugh.

 

-

 

They return to their regularly scheduled bickering right after entrees arrive. Regina almost has a conniption over the state of her perfectly nice salad, complaining about her chicken to lettuce to dressing ratio, to which Emma pokes fun of her for, both relieved and only a smidgen disappointed.

Nevertheless, everything is as it always has been and Emma tries not to think too hard about what that means. It’s not until she’s in bed, blinking in the darkness, trying to make out the knots in Regina’s back when she hears it.

“Goodnight,” Regina breathes, voice low and wispy, catching at the brink of sleep. “Emma.”

Without knowing she was looking for the perfect bookend to a night of surprises, the edge of her mouth quirks up without her permission and she listens intently as Regina’s breathing evens out. She’s happy, she thinks, even as her heart pounds in her chest too. Maybe she’s at the helm of something important, an arm’s length away from figuring it all out, answers to a question she’s never known to ask.

Too soon however, it’s drifting, and all she knows is she’s not so desperate to prevent it as before - even if she didn't know she was ever frantic to stop anything. She thinks maybe Gandhi or Granny once told her, “Change is inevitable,” and gently stroked her hair. It was probably Granny. She lets her eyelids grow heavy then, doesn't strain to keep them open anymore, and lets them fall close against the curve of Regina’s waist.

She’ll figure it out eventually, she’s sure, maybe not tonight, or the night after, but eventually.

“Goodnight, Regina.”

 

-

 

At eight the next morning, Emma wakes to the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

It’s the third time Regina makes her laugh out loud.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger warning for a very brief reference to past-abuse.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> So this was written well before the Mulan/Aurora debacle of 2013 so I'm probably psychic or something, right? I like my outcome way better tbh. Like, thanks but no thanks for singlehandedly ruining all you've built with one terrible, horrible, no-good trope, writers of OUAT.
> 
> I love you all (except you, Kitsis and that other guy), as does Henry the cat, who is indeed, a dignified feline.
> 
> (Also, here's a chapter summary: Super Dramatic teenagers don't listen to their best friends, part 2).

Their situation becomes something markedly healthier after that first dinner, improved further by an accidental coffee date she goes on with Kathryn and Graham – which is all Regina’s doing, of course. Long story short, Regina buys the flakiest, most delicious bear claws one morning along with brewing some of the best goddamned coffee Emma’s ever had the pleasure of pouring down her throat. When asked to buy them again however, Regina naturally refuses on principle of being a gigantic pain in the ass. And unable to retreat after having experienced the good pastry life, Emma is forced to go herself, thus:

“Emma!”

It’s like déjà vu, the way Graham waves his fork at her like it’s on fire. She feels significantly less nauseous than last time, mainly because she’s 800% sure Regina is in her business ethics class and that she would never, ever skip. The gods are finally looking kindly towards her.

“You know, Emma, if you wanted to hang out you could just ask instead of stalking us,” Graham teases once she reaches their table. Kathryn snorts and Emma kindly tells him to “ _shove it, loser_ ” before they both stand to hug her. The effect of Regina not being there must relax her nerves, enough so she doesn't even get that feeling in her gut when Graham squeezes her into a bear hug, just friendly affection she’s always had for the scraggly weirdo.

Kathryn greets her with her usual quiet energy and pulls Emma to sit across from them, which Emma gladly complies to. “Where’ve you been, Emma? We haven’t seen you around in ages.”

“Regina’s kept me locked up in her dungeon the last few weeks,” she jokes, stealing a piece of bacon from her friend. Emma knows she likes Kathryn a lot because she doesn't even mind.

Graham immediately catches on, “You piss her off again? Told you never to touch her cauldron but do you listen?”

Kathryn throws a grape at him and tells them both with mock indignation, “You two are terrible. I’m telling Regina all of this, by the way.”

“Traitor!”

“Hey, she’s not the one dating Regina, speak for yourself,” Emma teases, managing to sound only a little bitter, not realizing what she’s said until she’s said it. She doesn't even have time to think about how she’s not panicking before Graham gives her a confused smile and says, “Regina and me? We’re not dating.”

“Just imagine you two trying to date,” Kathryn supplies, obviously teasing Graham, who pouts and wails, “Hey! I will have you know any girl would be lucky to have me.”

They’re both remarkably blasé as they giggle over the possibility of Regina purchasing concessions just to throw in Graham’s face if he ever tried to take her to watch _Fast & Furious 6_. It makes her feel like she’s been missing a vital piece of information this whole time, so she just ends up saying, “I just thought...”

Graham sobers up a tinge and scratches the back of his neck awkwardly; like he’s afraid their not dating has hurt Emma’s feelings, and says, “If it makes you feel better, we have made out a lot?”

“Too much information,” Emma tells him, making a face. Kathryn matches her expression and loudly sings, “Amen.”

She starts laughing hard enough to choke on her spit.

 

-

 

October turns into November fast, and Regina glares less and less at her as days go by. Around mid-November, Emma even starts looking forward to their twice-a-week dinners.

Most times, they bicker about nothing almost as soon as they’re seated, yet somehow, despite the banter and tongue-in-cheek mocking, she learns more and more about Regina (like how she used to ride horses, but not anymore, don’t ask please) and in return, shares more about herself than she thought she ever would with her roommate (she was abandoned at the side of a highway and no, she doesn't want to find her birth parents anymore).

Luckily, they never return to the solemnity of their first dinner. And though Emma remains curious about the mysterious gift-giver, she doesn't push, hesitant to overstep when their camaraderie is tentative as is.

On the Friday six weeks into her and Regina’s newly found friendship however, Ruby cruelly bursts her bubble for her.

They’re sitting side by side in the back corner of the library, something Emma wouldn't have dared imagine during the first month of their living together. It’s a milestone and a bit of a miracle, how they've managed to go from mortal enemies to kind-of friends without spilling blood, and tacos are a great celebration food hence–

“There’s a Mexican restaurant on Front, you wanna go tonight?” Emma suggests, twirling her pen in her fingers.

Regina’s got her usual assortment of textbooks on the table, not having made a sound except for furious scribbling since they settled down half an hour ago. Emma pushes her notebook to her left, the one note she’s made being a pros and cons list between Mexican and Vietnamese cuisine.

“Hey.”

Regina ignores her _again_ , so her pen innocently clatters onto the table - for the fourth time. “Whoops.”

“Emma,” Regina’s finally looking at her now, which was really Emma’s main goal. Annoyance is painted into the crease between her eyebrows. Emma grins at her, the smug one that always manages to rile her up.

Regina huffs and reaches for the pen, but Emma is faster. “ _Emma_ ,” Regina warns, holding her hand out expectantly, as if her glare still had an effect on her roommate.

“Mexican?” she repeats as Regina stretches for the pen Emma holds slightly out of reach, pulling her arm further and further back until Regina’s ass is off her chair, her fingers wiggling for the offending object. Emma’s smile widens, _how undignified_.

“Give me the pen.”

“Give me an answer.”

Regina being Regina, only reaches further instead of simply answering. “Give me the pen or so help me, Emma.”

Her threat flies right over Emma’s head and she bobs over the blonde, her chin hovering over Emma’s face, dimpled by her pout of determination to wrest the annoying thing from her hand. It could be described as adorable – if Regina was the kind of woman who appreciated the notion and Emma was the kind to not feel awkward as hell doling out those sort of compliments.

Emma laughs. “Just tell me whether you wan-“

Regina slips before she can finish her sentence, the hand gripping her chair sliding against the arm as she tries to regain balance. She manages not to fall completely, but her chest presses briefly against Emma’s shoulder before pushing into her arm and her other hand lands in Emma’s lap, the heel digging against her inner thigh. Emma sucks in a quick breath at contact and freezes completely, Regina halfway into her lap and bent over the touching arms of their chairs.

It’s not exactly a gracious position but she can’t move, can’t do much else except feel Regina shift, feel the palm of Regina’s hand flat and warm against her thigh before she pulls away. She feels her heart stutter when Regina looks at her.

She appears about as uncertain as Emma feels and they blink at each other for a few seconds, trapped between action and consequence, so close that Emma could just –

“Ems?”

Regina hastily pulls away, the pen in Emma’s hand swiped from her in the same fluid motion. Emma breathes once, or maybe sighs, either way she knows she’s shaking just a little when she turns. It’s the first time since they've come to college she’s annoyed to see her sister.

Ruby, in turn, gives them a skeptical look and says, “Hey, what’re you doing here?”

“Studying,” she replies, sharper than she ever normally would.

Ruby doesn't comment and Regina makes a noise beside her. Emma can’t make herself look. She watches as the textbooks on their table are snapped shut one by one. “Ruby, Regina. Regina, Ruby,” Emma introduces, just for something to say. She knows for a fact they've met.

“It’s nice to see you, Miss Lucas. I have to go meet a friend, if you’ll excuse me,” Regina says tersely as she stands up. Emma’s surprised she doesn't pull a muscle the way her neck snaps to the side. Regina told her not three hours ago she was free all-day. Ruby gives her a wave as she sweeps out of the place, not glancing back once.

“What the hell was that?” Ruby asks as soon as she sees the double doors shut, plopping down in the seat beside her.

“What?” In truth, she’s wondering exactly what the hell that was too, but instead of saying as much, she looks down at her notebook and crosses out _Mexican_.

“You told me you were becoming friends; you didn't tell me you were becoming _friends_.”

“We _are_ friends, you just saw, and interrupted.”

Ruby shoves her, not hard enough to really do anything but get her attention, which is what Ruby wants from the way she’s suddenly leaning in close. “That? That was not friendship, Emma,” she says. “Damn, I was wrong about Graham then, huh?” She prods Emma again and leans against the chairs opposite arm, looking impressed.

“Would it kill you to make sense, Rubes?” Emma counters. She’s all confused right now, with Graham and how she’s not so sure she ever liked him that way, with Ruby and all her implications Emma just doesn't (want to) get, with Regina and how they almost–

Ruby frowns, biting the inside of her cheek like she’s trying to figure out whether Emma is being sly or if she’s just slow. They've been best friends for a decade now so it’s not three seconds before her expression clears and she rolls her eyes. “Emma, you just, god –“ She stops, blinks twice, opens her mouth and shuts it.

“Do you know Mulan and Aurora are together now?” she finally ekes out.

“ _Ruby._ ” 

“Just listen to me, I mean, we all thought Aurora and Philip were meant to be or something, right?”

“Fine okay, but I’m confused as hell,” Emma says as she slips her phone from her jacket pocket to the desk, in case Regina decides to text her an explanation.

Ruby takes one look at her hand and probably reads her mind, her eyes already rolling in their sockets again, so slowly and thoroughly Emma manages to count to a full ten seconds.

“God, Emma, how do you–” Ruby closes her eyes, breathes deeply like she’s trying not to beat Emma to a pulp and sighs. “Anyway, do you even remember high school?”

Emma scratches the back of her neck and wonders why Ruby brought this up to begin with, they were never close with Aurora or Mulan, in fact: “The only reason I remember Mulan is because she ran track with me and was totally this moody brooding type, I was kinda afraid she was gonna stab me if I lost a race or something.”

“You idiot, Mulan and Philip were like best friends, remember? And everybody thought Mulan was crazy in love with Philip and Aurora was a masochist for constantly hanging out with the girl who was in love with her boyfriend. The summer after we graduated, the summer you got drunk in the –“

Emma puts her hand up; just thinking about it makes her head swim. “Yeah, Jesus, _that_ I remember.”

“So anyway, they were gonna go on this crazy road trip to –“

“California! To see Heart’s reunion tour – oh my god, Phil wouldn't stop talking about his stupid _Heart_ , I remember that.”

Ruby grins, like reliving their high school memories is fun instead of excruciating. “Exactly! And then he went and broke his rib cage and couldn't leave the house but he convinced Mulan and Aurora to go without him and they came back in a month and nobody knew why Aurora dumped Philip like a hot potato,” Ruby says in one breath. She’s really excited now, her words stringing together to form one run-on sentence. “And Ashley caught them making out behind the bank –”

Emma snaps her fingers when the whole thing comes back to her and points to Ruby, cutting her off. “Oh shit, she got so mad at Sean for telling that she yelled at him in the cafeteria. Yeah, no, I totally remember,” she says, and then blinks. “So what? Are you trying to say I’m Philip in this scenario?”

Ruby shakes her head and looks at Emma with a smile, the kind you use when breaking bad news to a child prone to running away from home. “Emma, you are so dim sometimes. You’re clearly Mulan.”

Emma frowns. “So I’m the potential serial killer? And Regina is Philip?”

“No! Gosh, let me spell this out for you. You are Mulan, Regina is Aurora and Graham is Philip, do you understand?”

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

-

 

So, Emma figures, maybe she got it wrong from the get-go. Maybe she hasn't been jealous of Regina this whole time, maybe Graham was a convenient scapegoat and maybe – and here comes the silly part – it’s difficult to believe you’re attracted to someone who annoys you to implausible degrees of frustration.

Frustration Emma might now understand to be of the sexual variety, maybe.

The thing is, now that Ruby’s got these ideas in her head, all the puzzle pieces seem to slide into place. The way her stomach drops in the morning when Regina speaks to her (acclimating to new foods, her head had told her), voice still rough with sleep. How her eyes glue themselves to the expanse of shoulder revealed by how Regina's pajama top always magically slants. The way they fight and Emma always finds reasons to press closer (so Regina would be easier to strangle, her brain had said), until all she can smell is apple and Regina’s eyes burning into her own. The way she’s sometimes just glad when Regina gives her a rare smile, genuine and light and full of promise (you’re really pretty, she had wanted to shout).

When Emma gets back to their room, it’s nearly midnight. There’s no light coming from the slit underneath the door but she takes a deep breath regardless before letting herself in. To her shock, Regina is sitting in front of her computer as usual. Only it’s off, the lone light in the room coming from the lamp sitting on the desk.

She leans against the closed door and watches Regina stare resolutely at the textbook open in front of her.

“You’re awake,” Emma says.

Regina’s jaw clenches. For the seconds silence lingers in the air, Emma isn't sure whether Regina will ignore her or not, but then she relaxes, looks up and merely states, “It’s midnight.”

It’s more an accusation than an explanation, and also weirdly endearing, how Regina tries so hard to mask how much she cares. This mundane little nothing makes Emma brave, makes the edge of her mouth curve up, makes her say, “Were you waiting up for me?”

“Of course not,” comes Regina’s immediate reply. Emma has no intention of playing games, though Regina must think she’s at some disadvantage because she stands up and moves to lean against the side of the desk, mirroring Emma, down to her crossed arms.

She’d stayed out late talking to Ruby, trying to determine whether to act on the thing she and Regina have been unconsciously building up to these past few weeks. Emma had thought to sleep on it, clear her head before trying to tackle such a delicate situation, but coming back to a stubborn Regina who refuses to admit to doing something as saccharine as waiting up for her is compromising her judgment.

Like most important decisions in her life, Emma goes with her gut.

“Really? ‘Cause it sure as hell looks like it,” she drawls. She pushes herself off the door and begins taking slow steps towards Regina, whose knuckles are white from gripping at the edges of her desk.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She’s three steps in, crossing half the distance from the door to Regina, giving her apt time to avoid Emma if that’s what she wanted. Still, Regina remains motionless, carefully watching Emma’s deliberate approach.

“You know what’s ridiculous?” Emma says as she takes the final three steps, stopping toe to toe with Regina. “Having to live with you.”

They've yet to break eye contact, which is why Emma can see exactly how Regina's pupils dilate as she shortens the distance between them, or how they widen before they narrow at her complaint.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re rude and snobby and a crazy person,” Emma tallies, smiling as Regina’s frown deepens. “And you’re also kind of funny, and really smart and really _stupidly_ pretty.”

Emma holds her breath, waiting for a reaction she’s not sure will be kind to her. The way Regina’s down-turned lips slowly turn into a knowing smile makes the nervous thumping in her chest re-calibrate, filtering the thrashing into a heavy, noisy beat.

“Well, you’re messy and irritating and incredibly slow.” Each word is punctuated with an infinitesimal invasion of Emma’s space, until their noses are almost touching and the backs of their hands brush lazily against each other. “And you’re kind.”

“I gave you three. “ She twines her fingers through Regina’s, holding them together palm to palm.

“Greedy,” Regina adds in a whisper, staring down at their connected hands.

Emma notices and she pulls gently, loosening her grip to wrap her arms around Regina, setting her cheek on a shoulder. She feels arms slide tentatively against her hip, then her waist.

It’s a struggle to get her words out, a problem she doesn't think the person she’s currently pressed against has ever had. She sighs, forehead resting against the warm skin of Regina’s neck. The position kind of makes her back hurt, with Regina being two inches shorter than her and still half leaning half sitting on the desk. But it’s worth it, absolutely.

“Listen, we’re probably both really bad at talking when we’re not arguing so let’s just try to, you know, try.”

“What are you saying, Emma?” Regina asks quietly, meek in a way Emma doesn’t ever think of Regina as, but nonetheless finds endearing in her.

“This is a declaration of intent,” Emma says after a moment, and then pulls back to look at her. She’s never been so great at putting words to how she feels so she slides her hands down Regina’s arms instead and pulls her hands from her waist, tangling them together again.

Regina doesn’t look this time because she’s too busy rolling her eyes. “What are you intending?”

“I intend to take you to dinner,” Emma answers proudly and begins to swing their hands a little. She can’t really get over how warm Regina’s hand is in hers and maybe how she really needs to work off the energy building between them before she does something silly.

“We already do that.” Regina points out.

It makes her want to laugh, to realize they’ve kind of been dating for the last month and a half. She remembers the Friday after a month of her promised dinners, how Regina had started buttoning up her pea coat right at seven thirty, even though they both knew she was no longer obligated to get Emma coffee or dinner or call her Emma.

She did anyway.

With one hand on the doorknob and the other clenched tightly in her pocket, Regina had said, “Coming, Emma?” before giving her a look that was half daring and half pleading. Emma had blinked up from her bed, confused and then happy, before scrambling for her jacket.

Now, Emma shrugs and grins so wide her cheeks hurt. “Great, then we've got that pesky first date out of the way. Go us.”

Regina’s grip tightens and Emma doesn't know why, just gives her hand a squeeze to let Regina know she’s there. Regina's voice is soft, her eyes even softer when she says, with an uncertainty that chafes at Emma’s heart, “You want to… date?”

“Yeah, I want t–“

Regina kisses her, hard and unrelenting, pulling Emma so tightly against herself that she’s practically mounting Regina against her desk. Being kissed by Regina leaves her bereft of any ability but to respond in kind. Despite not really understanding the flow of events, Emma definitely won’t begrudge the way Regina’s hand has found its way to the bare skin just under the waist of her jeans. She doesn't make a sound, but immediately reciprocates, arms going around Regina and fingers clutching at the back of her shirt.

Regina's kisses are demanding like Emma would expect, but severely decapitate her in a way nobody ever has. Every time they break apart for air, Emma is chasing her again, pressing her eager lips against Regina's soft, wonderful mouth. It's not long before she’s pushed backwards, Regina directing them even as they continue trading wet kisses. Then, before she knows how, she’s flat on her back and Regina’s straddling her thighs, her hair falling into her flushed and still ridiculously attractive face. Emma doesn't hesitate to reach up and push her bangs behind her ear, trailing her fingers down Regina’s defined jaw on her way back.

“Not that I don’t enjoy this because I _really_ do but –“

“I don’t date,” Regina interjects softly. It’s not exactly rejection but not, _not_ that either and Emma can barely articulate a thought because Regina presses her lips softly against hers and it’s apples again. Emma really, really likes apples.

She breathes, tries to concentrate on what this all means, only she basically short circuits with how Regina is _everywhere_ within focus; a comforting weight sitting against her, two arms barring either side of her face, a pair of inscrutable brown eyes drawing closer and closer until curtains of hair block out the light.

“But I do this.” Regina doesn’t wait for an answer and instead sweeps down to kiss her again, shimmying up until they’re pressed together and–

_Fuck._

 

-

 

“We’re adults, right?” Regina says right after all of Emma goes limp. She shifts and rolls off Emma, looking down at her with an elbow propped against her pillow.

Sated and boneless, Emma turns, and it’s a miracle she doesn't jump Regina again right then and there. She looks wholly improper, with her hair completely mussed, her ever-present red lipstick almost faded, swaths of it smeared over her cheeks and chin. _Ravished_ stupidly comes to mind and Emma isn't so sure she has another coherent thought but that. Yet in the fog, she somehow she hears herself say, “I can be mature, sure.”

Regina lets out a breath of what Emma thinks (with disappointment she just can’t quell) must be relief. Slowly, her hand snakes up and over Emma’s belly and her chin is arrested between two fingers. A thumb brushes the dip under her lower lip and Regina smiles at her. Emma can’t stop herself from reading it as stupidly tender, twisting her insides up so badly that she has to get the hell away right now because they aren't going to talk and it’s not her choice and when has she ever been the one to _want_ to talk but they just had sex and _Regina doesn't want to date._

“Mature means we sleep in separate beds, right?” Emma asks against the sudden lump of emotion forming in her throat. She sounds cold even to herself, which is a complete contradiction to how she actually feels, hot from all the places Regina and her are pressed together. But If she doesn't move now she might do something horrifying like… cry. “So I’m just gonna–“ She jerks her thumb towards the other side of the room.

Regina pulls away quicker than even in the library, less disentangling herself then ripping her body away from Emma like a piece of velcro. She settles with her back against the mattress in less time than it takes for Emma to realize they’re no longer skin to skin. To have Regina touching her so quietly and then pull away so shortly makes the loss more palpable, makes Emma itch to take her hand.

“Right,” Regina says into the ceiling, fists bunching at the sheets over her hips. “It’s getting late.”

 

-

 

Emma is fucking confused.

It’s been two weeks now. Two weeks of really great but really confusing sex. The most bewildering aspect of it, maybe, is how sometimes Regina will look at her right after, brow furrowed and lips set in a line like she wants to say something. Usually she just shakes her head and looks away. Sometimes, _most of the time_ , Emma just wants to ask, _“What the fuck, Regina? Why do you have to be so fucking confusing?”_ but then she remembers _I can be mature, sure_ and lets Regina turn around, slides away from the warmth and climbs into her own bed stuffed with 100% abandonment issues instead.

They establish an unspoken practice. They kiss whenever they want, as long as it’s in the privacy of their dorm. They fuck whenever they want, as long as they don’t sleep in the same bed. Everything outside of their sexual relationship remains the same. They bicker and they banter and they eat dinner together twice-a-week. It’s _mature_ , Emma repeats to herself, like the world’s most self-deceptive mantra.

Regina has scars too, Emma notices. After the brief stretch of time wherein she wasn’t sure Regina wanted to keep whatever they were doing going, she’d walked right in the night after and backed Emma into her desk, let Emma kiss her again. Emma had noticed then, _scars_.

They aren't wounds from another human being, not the triggering little white marks like on the backs of Emma’s knees; the ones that gave her phantom pain before Granny had made her see a therapist. It helped, she thinks, even though she’ll never forget what they mean. On the contrary, Emma’s pretty sure Regina’s scars are a different beast altogether.

She doesn't ask why though, she knows from experience, doesn't do anything but reverently trace them with the tips of her fingers, kiss them gently when Regina will let her. Some are deeper than others, a strong gouged line scoring across her hipbone, crisscrossing further past the ones she’d seen on Regina that night so many weeks ago. Closer, they still carry a peachy hue, all similar in colour. Emma recognizes them as having occurred all at once, probably only a few years ago.

She wonders if they still hurt, if they hurt when they happened or if Regina ever hurts when she looks at them. She pushes herself up at the thought and kisses Regina as softly as she can, trying to express the feeling wound up tight in her chest. She ends up looking at Regina wordlessly and thumbing gently just under her hipbone instead.

Regina doesn't say anything, only places her hands over Emma’s, brings them to her chest and kisses her again.

 

-

 

“Stop staring at your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Emma sighs, frowning into her drink. She and Ruby are at another Graham and the Wolves show. It’s a Thursday night, the crowd significantly less rowdy and the set mostly experimental ballads. It kind of suits Emma’s mood perfectly.

“But you want her to be,” Ruby says, statement rather than question. She pointedly looks over in the direction Emma’s been staring at all night, where Regina and Kathryn are chatting seriously over a small round table. Regina hasn't looked at Emma once all night - she would know.

Emma nudges her hard with her fist. “Stop it, Ruby.”

“You’re doing that mopey thing. Talk to her, Emma. Tell her how you feel.”

“You don’t know how I feel.”

“Umm yeah, I do. You like her and it’s super obvious.” Ruby is indignant, arms crossed and all but physically pushing Emma to make a move.

Emma glances at Regina’s table again, reminds herself of exactly why she’s doing this. Regina looks great tonight, as she always does, perfectly put together in all the ways Emma has never managed. She’s leaning against a newly arrived Graham’s arm, too close to be friendly. Emma knows they’re not dating – because Regina doesn't date – but it doesn't make her sulk any less. She doesn't like it, that much her pride can admit.

She doesn't even smile when Kathryn tries to wave her over, only declines not-so-politely with a shake of her head. Regina still doesn't look.

“It doesn't matter, she’s been clear about what she wants.”

“You’re Emma Swan, when have you ever cared about stuff like that?” Ruby asks her. Emma pauses in her moping to raise an eyebrow and Ruby challenges her, clearly the winner. Her eyebrow basically in her hair, Ruby is a perfect visual representation of  _duh_. “I mean, when have you ever let that sort of stuff get in your way? You’re braver than this, you idiot.”

“I’m not gonna force her to be in a relationship with me, Ruby.”

Before Ruby can even tell her she’s being stupid again, a man steps up to their table. He’s scruffy and handsome in that rugged way Ruby would've loved if she wasn't about to whip her best friend into shape. She glares at him, though it’s kind of useless, because he’s looking at Emma, practically already in love.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks in a deep voice.

Instead of walking away when Emma doesn't pay him a lick of attention, persistent dude hovers. Ruby nudges Emma, who spins to face her, a dangerous look of a split second decision in her eyes. “I’m respecting what Regina wants,” she mumbles, almost robotically, turning to the man still standing awkwardly by their table. “So I’ll take that drink, thanks.”

The man goes from a dopey, confused frown to a grin and completely ignores Ruby, leading Emma away towards the bar. Ruby stares open mouthed after them and for the first time that night, catches Regina looking Emma’s way. Even from a distance, Ruby can see Regina’s mouth immediately twist unpleasantly when she catches Emma laughing it up with unkempt bar guy.

Ruby continues watching like a bystander who can’t stop observing a train wreck from afar, as Emma meets Regina’s eyes. Clueless bar guy misses it all, intent on ordering something fancy for Emma and for some messed up reason, Emma maintains eye contact even as she’s handed a drink. Ruby looks on in horror as she, like a silent, subconscious acceptance to the fucked up thing between her and Regina delicately places her hand on stupid bar guy’s forearm. He lights up like a Christmas tree while Regina absolutely glowers, but ultimately looks away, in something Ruby thinks is either pride or misery, or both. Emma’s eyes flash then dim, continuing to stare at Regina even as she steadies herself with Graham’s hand.

Ruby finishes off both the drink Emma left behind and her own in two quick gulps.

She can’t be sober when she knows how badly this is going to end.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies!! Both for raising the number of chapters again and for being a dick about updating. I'm still not sure about how long this will be (it might go down again? or up? WHO KNOWS) so preemptive apology about that too!! I love you all, thank you so much for your kudos and comments (please know that I totally read them and smile and wow you guys are so kind and great and motivating).
> 
> I will finish this weird, self-serving college au where none of the kids actually go to class and just talk-not-talk about feelings all day as if college students have the time for that!!! if it's the last thing I do (omg I promise it's not the last thing on my to-do list, seriously).
> 
> Chapter summary? I love Kathryn and lotsa f-bombs and no beta! Mistakes! Thanks!

She’s in a stranger’s bed and she’s pretty sure she doesn't have a shirt on.

Emma groans, because _shit does her fucking head hurt_ but mostly because _fuck, Regina will probably never talk to her again._ The despair the latter thought fosters in her actually brings tears to her eyes, which is how she knows she’s positively fucked. She tries to muffle her sniffles, hoping who she remembers to be blurry bar guy is a deep sleeper and won’t wake up if she cries.

“Hey, you okay?”

_Ah, fuck._

“I’m fine,” Emma mutters into the pillow her face is crushed against. She’s lying flat on her stomach and she doesn't want to move, ever again. It’d be too embarrassing to ever be away from this pillow and this blanket. Plus she might barf.

“Is this about Regina?” The disembodied dude voice asks.

“Huh?”

“Regina? Your maybe-girlfriend? This is about Regina, right?”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Emma lifts her head. No-longer-blurry bar guy is crouched in front of the bed, eye level with her. There’s likely a thousand more important questions she should ask and yet what leaves her mouth is, “How did y –“

“I guess you really blacked out last night, huh?” he interrupts with a grin, which is really the only thing she remembers about him. The grin and the credit card he’d used to buy her an inhuman amount of drinks.

She narrows her eyes at him, to which he responds by taking his index finger and poking her in between the eyes.  It hurts like fucking _hell_ , so Emma glares again and lets the weight of her head drop back onto the fluffy, nice, quiet pillow as rich mean bar guy continues, “First of all, we did not have sex, of any kind. You told me to stipulate that for you last night. I also want to indicate to you that you took your own shirt off in a bout of and I quote, ‘drunk hots’. Also, I’m really not into girls who call me by another girl’s name and start crying about how complicated it is, it’s totally bad for my ego.”

He pauses, either to make sure Emma hasn't overloaded on information and passed out or for dramatic effect. Emma strongly suspects it’s the latter. After a second of inspection, the loud groan of annoyance and bone deep weariness that emanates through the room seems to satisfy him. Emma doesn't even bother moving when he stands up and grabs something from somewhere. It turns out to be a bottle of blue Gatorade, which she gratefully receives when he chucks it at her and starts chugging.

“Secondly, we had a very nice chat last night and I’m really very hurt that you don’t remember any of it.”

She mumbles a quick insincere apology to which he shrugs and grins again. He’s joking, of course, and all her wits may be delayed and groggy but she senses he knows more than he lets on. She sort of gets then why she seemingly decided to divulge all her secrets to him last night, because so far, he’s kind of the most disarming man she’s ever met.

“And thirdly, you promised you’d take me out to brunch.”

She lets him finish his spiel in silence, letting it linger for a few more seconds, enough so it becomes awkward and he might leave. He blinks slowly and shifts his weight from his left foot to his right, totally uncaring of how uncomfortable _she’s_ beginning to feel. Emma’s kind of impressed by just how unaware he might or might not be pretending to be, though she still doesn't know something as simple as his name. What she does know is that, “You talk a lot.”

Talkative bar guy frowns theatrically, looking like a baboon. A sad baboon. He mockingly places his hand over his heart. “You told me you liked that about me last night, was it all a lie?”

“No, I didn't,” Emma deadpans with a roll of her eyes, which, still,  _fucking ouch._

He drops the act quicker than speedy Gonzales would've managed, somehow making Emma like him more. She really understands why drunk-Emma would trust him. “Yeah, but you did promise me brunch,” he says without inflection, standing and mercilessly throwing the shades open. The light makes everything in Emma ache _._

“Twenty minutes, then brunch. Bathroom is the door to your right, I’ll be in the living room.” He pauses underneath the doorway and turns around, like maybe he should further establish his status as currently: devil. “Considering the conversation we just had, you've probably forgotten. I’m Neal.”

“You’re the fucking worst, Neal.”

The bastard grins.

 

-

 

Emma realizes she’s already slept through her morning class by the time she powers her way into standing position and makes it the bathroom. She doesn't have a change of clothes, though Neal kindly lets her use his shower – “ _you smell like, really bad_ ” – and his ugly powder pink towels.

When she checks her phone, Ruby’s sent her about a dozen messages, all asking after her well-being.

_I’m ok, mite barf tho. U wre hitting booze prty hard, make it home ok?_

She feels kind of shitty for forgetting about her best friend’s welfare even though she was literally black out drunk, for granny’s sake. A second later, her phone buzzes.

_MM got me, vom in hr bckset, sh's nt mad tho. Tlk 2nite?_

She responds in the affirmative and figures after all that she really does owe Neal that brunch drunken-her promised. They walk side by side down to a café she frequents, chatting easily about anything and anyone while decidedly avoiding talking about the night before.

“Hey uh, by the way, thanks for everything,” she says stiltedly, finally managing to thank him, albeit awkwardly because _thanks for buying me a bunch of drinks and letting me cry on your shoulder about this girl I might really like_ just seems contrite at this point _._ She bumps her left arm against his right and he tilts on the side of his shoe as if an hundred and twenty pound girl could really knock him off balance. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, smiling down his chin at her, he really is the picture of adorable, gruff dude-friend.

“We’re going to have a long and enduring friendship, Emma, because I’ve found out more about you in less than twenty four hours than I have in decades with my so-called friends.”

Emma rolls her eyes and really pushes him this time. He tips dangerously again, maybe for real this time. She’s tempted to push harder, get him on his ass like he metaphorically did with her, but she’s still in danger of vomiting.

“You’re being sarcastic, right? My hangover brain says it’s a maybe.”

Neal frowns, running his index finger under his eye in mock-jest. “Poor hungover Emma.”

They laugh. Emma feels lighter with Neal, it's not relief exactly, but like perhaps he understands her even if he doesn't really know her. It’s calming walking and talking and not having to hold back.

It’s so nice Emma almost misses the three familiar people sliding out from the corner booth of the café. She catches them just as they’re gathering their things and slipping their jackets on and quells her desire to run away. She grabs frantically at Neal and pulls him back a step. “We have to go somewhere else,” she whispers, tugging hard at his arm.

“Why? I like the omelets here. Is it because your Regina is in the corner throwing daggers with her eyes?”

Sure enough, when she looks, all three of them have spotted Emma hanging onto Neal’s arm like a life raft. She almost punches him but only huffs in defeat, “If you know, why are you asking?”

Her hand still wrapped conspicuously around his arm, Emma can’t pull away quickly in fear of looking even guiltier. A voice in her head convincingly tells her she has nothing to feel guilty for and a second voice joins in, advocating the ease of transferring colleges. They're both incredibly unhelpful and Emma comes close to stomping her feet like a child, caught between Regina’s possible misinterpretation and Neal’s arm. She decides to squeeze harder instead of drawing away, hoping Neal will get the clue and find a way to save her.

He totally doesn't, because the next thing out of his mouth is: “Because it’s funny to watch you squirm and– hey, I’m Neal.”

She looks up. The trio’s stopped in front of them; Kathryn with an uncharacteristic look of worry, Graham with an absolutely characteristic leer and Regina looking oddly vacuous.

“Hey guys,” Emma greets softly, hand now tucked into the crook of Neal’s arm. She doesn't think pulling away now will really be of any benefit. In fact, he seems to be steadying her, preventing her from outright grabbing Regina’s hand and telling her how _this is all a mix-up_. That would be bad, Emma’s pretty sure Regina would hate the physicality, the childishness of it all.

_I can be mature, sure. Ugh._

There’s a round of pleasant enough introductions before Graham’s eyes light up with joy at having realized, “Same shirt as last night, Ems.”

He wags his stupid handsome eyebrows at her and she clutches tighter at Neal’s arm, at how she seems to be the only one incapable of mastering control of her facial hair.

Or maybe it’s the way Regina seems to flinch at his teasing. Or maybe it’s all in her imagination.

Regina is wearing the same clothes she’d worn last night too. So there’s that.

Kathryn slaps his arm, as harshly as Emma’s ever seen Kathryn do anything, and says, “Shut it, Graham.” She turns to Emma, the skin beneath her forehead creasing. Still, her eyes are soft and she smiles. Emma doesn’t think it’s very convincing at all. “We’ll see you later, right, Emma?”

She nods, unsure of how to go about asking Regina if _she’s alright, if this is okay_. She doesn't think she has the words, they keep getting all tangled up in her throat. Not that they’d matter much anyway, if Regina is too detached to answer her. Emma allows herself a second to study her gir- fri- acq- _roommate_. Regina’s hands rest heavy in the pockets of her pea coat, buttons unbuttoned and collar uneven. Emma finds she looks unlike herself in a worrisome way, not pristine and kept together by her clothes and her attitude and her words. This Regina simmers low and hot with something she's distantly familiar with.

Her hand slackens and Neal shoots her a look she ignores.

She wonders if Regina went back to their room last night. She doesn't think so.

“Sure. I’ll see you back at the dorm, Regina?” she asks, hopeful that Regina will at least say something derisive, something to prove she’s paying attention. All Emma gets is Kathryn noticeably stiffening and Graham doing nothing but smirking harmlessly at her.

“Yes.” Regina answers, pulling the two sides of her coat together. She doesn't make to button up, even though Emma thinks she looks cold. Kathryn quietly puts an arm around her. “I’m freezing, we’re gonna head in,” she says. Graham quickly agrees and they say their goodbyes, Emma watching Regina the entire time. Like the night before, lingering eye contact is a hopeless cause. She watches the trio disappear around the corner.

“She’s a talker, your girl,” Neal snips offhandedly when they’re seated and waiting for their food. She glares at him and he frowns, then shrugs.

“Hey, sorry, I didn't mean anything by it.”

Emma slumps in her seat, letting her muscles finally relax and flipping the image of Regina over and over again in her head. Regina would never wear the same scarf twice in one week, let alone wear the same outfit one day after another. She must’ve spent the night with Kathryn and Graham, which means–

“It’s fine,” she snaps, squeezing her eyes shut. Everything hurts, every part of her is hung over.

Her hands fist underneath the table as her heart beats violently in her chest, teeth digging into her bottom lip until it turns near white. Neal leans back against his chair, as if the force of her reaction alone knocked the laughs right out of his sail. She feels kind of bad for barking at him. He’s being a friend, a friend who thought he might be getting laid and instead got a newly sanctioned bisexual blonde who’s taking him out to brunch. _Jesus Christ, Emma_.

“Do you like, love her?” he asks, not without kindness, but candid as all fuck.

“No,” she responds automatically, and she’s pretty sure it’s the truth. Emma’s almost certain she’s never been in love before, not the kind in that big book of fairy-tales a family friend had gotten them as children. This isn't what it’s supposed to feel like, the tales assure her as much. Constantly weighing the pros and cons of saying what she wants to say, of finding the right words to say it with, something as simple as _you’re pretty_ can be so easily misconstrued as _I want more._

She – maybe – perhaps – might want more, but like most things, she’s just not sure. She sighs, scrubbing her hand over her face roughly, and adds, “I want to talk to her all the time though, I guess.”

Neal nods sagely and it's so unlike her to expose herself to a near-stranger, but for some unfathomable reason, she trusts him, so she continues, “And sometimes I don’t even care if we talk or touch, I kind of just like to be around her, in the same room. I don’t know.”

He gives her a skeptical look, and like the straight-shooter she’s known him to be thus far, says, “Hate to break it to you Emma but–“

“Shut up, Neal.”

“Gotcha.”

He doesn't bring it up for the rest of their meal.

She pays. God help her, she kind of likes the idiot.

 

-

 

At five pm, after having been walked back to her dorm by Neal, she really just wants to see Henry, crawl into her bed and suffocate slowly. It really puts a pin in her plans when she finds Kathryn sitting cross-legged against her door, reading. _Secret History_ by _Donna Tarte_ , a book Emma has not read, and will probably never read.

Emma just wants to get this over with, to forget about her feelings and maybe preempt any disappointing news Kathryn might have for her with the power of pure, forceful will - which begins with getting her friend off her doorstep. “Hey Kathryn, Regina is in her–“

“Financial accounting class, yeah,” Kathryn finishes for her, placing her book back into her bag. She looks tired, the shadows beneath her eyes more pronounced than even an average college students should be. Emma’s hackles immediately lower, especially when Kathryn asks, in that soft understated way of hers, “Could I maybe talk to you, Emma?”

Emma jingles the keys in her hands and nods. “Sure, come in.”

She lets them both in silently. Henry is out, judging from the lack of meows and cat cuddling when they step into the room. That’s good, she thinks, Henry is part of this too, but he’s a cat and they aren't known to be really helpful during human conversations.

She lets Kathryn slip past her and watches as she steps gracefully into the center of the room and settles against the edge of their desks, index finger trailing lightly against the wood.

“I’m sorry for showing up like this, Emma,” she says, watching the curl of her own fingers.

Emma sits down on her bed and tucks her legs into her chest, tries to make herself as small as possible so Kathryn might relax. She looks uncomfortable, her shoulders tense and taut. It’s all starting to make that feeling close to Emma’s heart twist and constrict, because Kathryn is never awkward and afraid – like her.

It doesn’t work. “It’s okay, is everything alright?” she asks.

Kathryn hesitates, buying time by drawing little swirls into Regina’s desk. It’s immaculate, of course, not a speck of dust for her to catch. “I wanted to talk to you about Regina,” she manages to say. She takes a breath and seems to gather courage from that alone, at least enough to drive her to continue, “And to tell you that what happened at brunch wasn’t about you.”

Hollow relief floods through Emma, as If her emotions are trying to figure out whether she’s pleased or hurt that Regina was emotional, that Regina could have emotions – but not concerning her.

Kathryn sighs and pulls a hand through her hair, not frustrated with Emma but ostensibly with herself. She lightly scuffs the heel of her shoe against the shag carpet.

“Sorry, I mean, it was about you, kind of, but not really. Something weird happened after you left the other night,” Kathryn says, wringing her hands together in pause but ultimately smoothing her palms against the side of the desk, choosing not to elaborate. She looks straight at Emma, apologetically. “I’m kind of butchering this, right?”

Emma backs herself up against the wall, feeling the cold bite at the base of her spine where her top’s ridden up. If its bad news Kathryn's been tasked to deliver, Emma can’t honestly say she hadn't expected it. Quick, she really just wants it be quick. “I think you should say what you want to say, Kathryn.”

Her friend sighs again, pushing herself off the desks. She makes for Emma’s chair, sits herself down and plants her feet. Like Regina last night, Kathryn can’t seem to make eye contact anymore, finding the tops of her shoes utterly fascinating. “These last few years have been tough on Regina.”

This wasn't the spick-and-span speech Emma thought she’d be hearing recited to her, this is something else, something unexpected. She swallows the spit in her mouth, feels her throat dry up like she’s been in the sun for ages.

“She was in an accident a few years ago, it was –“

“A car accident.”

Kathryn looks up, surprise written in the way her mouth falls open and pulls her brows together. “Did she tell y –“

“No, I just –“ Emma stops herself short. To tell Kathryn she _just knew_ would be facetious, even if there’s some truth to it, some part of her that somehow inherently knew Regina had been hurt, and badly. “She has scars,” she decides to reveal instead, dropping her chin, dragging down until she finds darkness, her forehead pressed into her kneecaps.

“I’m not at liberty to tell you the story Emma, and it’s certainly not my place to tell you how Regina feels. All I know is that Regina–”

“We’re not –“

Kathryn silences her with a drop of her chin, wheeling over and placing a warm hand on her knee. “I know you might think you’re like Graham and you’re not. I mean, at the time, Graham was there and easy and comfortable but they aren't anything serious.”

“Neither are we, Kathryn. She’s made it clear about what she wants.”

Kathryn’s mouth snaps shut, all the muscles in her face tensing in a beat and the room suddenly sits heavier on both of them. She seems lost in thought, gaze stuck unseeing, breaths shallow. Emma hesitantly touches the tips of her fingers to the hand still against her knee and in another moment, as if the worst has passed without her knowledge, Kathryn looks up, and the gravity melts away.

Then, “Can I tell you a story, Emma?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I was pregnant, in high school.”

“Kathryn, I’m –“

“I’m ready, Emma and my therapist agrees. I can talk about this,” she declares. Kathryn’s voice waivers but doesn't break, her free hand drawing thick patterns on the side of her knees. Emma is suddenly devastated in a way that has nothing to do with Regina at all.

After a short silence, she continues, “It was senior year and I was so happy, you wouldn't believe it. An eighteen year old pregnant, should've ruined my life but it felt right and I was happy and –“

Emma feels her heart drop when a tear slides down Kathryn’s cheek. “Then I had a miscarriage.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Kathryn wipes her cheek daintily with the back of her hand and looks away.

“It was pretty much the worst time of my life. I was inconsolable, and the boy who – he fell in love with someone else. I think he really tried to be loyal and help me through it all but I told him to go, you know? I was more in love with the baby than I ever was with him, I don’t think I can fault him for leaving me.”

Emma, horrified and sad, shifts and hands Kathryn a wad of tissues from beside her bed. It feels like an exceedingly uneven exchange, no matter how she looks at it.

A semblance of a smile pulls at the corner of Kathryn’s mouth as she endures, “Regina didn't think so, of course.”

Kathryn thanks Emma even though Emma thinks there’s absolutely no reason for her to, folds a tissue in half and wipes under her eyes. “I hadn't seen her for months at this point, her accident was only the year before but she dropped everything as soon as she heard to spend the summer with me, holed up in my house, in her room. Anywhere I wanted to go, she’d go with me.”

“She was still pretty broken and we were both grieving over things we had no control over, it felt like someone finally understood.”

Kathryn pauses in her recollection and Emma takes the opportunity to ask, because this is so important, and she feels like she doesn't deserve to know. “Kathryn, why?”

Her friend, her sweet, brave friend, smiles with wet eyes. Emma doesn't even flinch when Kathryn flips her hand and holds Emma's, hot and damp, between her own. “Try to be patient with her, please. We’re both still in tatters, no matter how much we try.”

Emma doesn't think she really understands, but she tries, and she doesn't pull her hand away. “Henry was his, the person who was in the car with her.”

“She loved him.”

“She _loves_ him.”

Kathryn nods.

 

-

 

Kathryn hugs her tightly before leaving, squeezing her like she fiercely wants Emma to know things will be okay. Emma does not squeeze back, because she doesn't know things will be okay and she doesn't like to lie if she doesn't have to. The thought that Kathryn would've made a great mother – a fantastic one, the kind she used to dream about before Granny and Ruby and the diner compels her to wrap her arms around Kathryn too, but she doesn't squeeze.

Kathryn smiles at her, a hand on her arm seeping warmth through the material of her tee. She’s trying to assure Emma that she and Regina will figure it out, somehow. Emma smiles back because Kathryn’s eyes are still red-rimmed and wet and she’s a good friend, a really great friend.

Kathryn leaves and Emma is alone, standing motionless in front of a closed door.

There’s a familiar clinking behind her, then a fur ball twining itself between her legs. Henry meows and sits expectantly at her feet, waiting for those treats Emma always sneaks to him behind Regina’s back. He doesn't notice how Emma’s world’s been skewed a slight degree to the left, maybe because he’s a cat, maybe because that's his way of comforting her.

Instead of feeding him per rote, she bends down, hands resting on her knees. Emma stares back at this cat she’s grown to love so much. “A lot of people love you, kid,” she says, reaching out to stroke his head. Henry was his, yeah, but he’s Emma’s now, too. She's not trying to compete, even though trying to justify caring about someone who so belonged to someone else seems like a competition she's got no chance of winning anyway.

Henry purrs, whines and she drops back onto her butt to let him crawl into her lap. She likes to think they both know who she’s really talking about.

“You're very lucky, Henry,” she says to absolutely no one who can understand her.

 

-

 

Emma isn't brave enough to text Regina. Regina does not text her.

Regina doesn't come home that night either.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY i love you very much writing is hard summer is so drunk writing is harder drunk than it is sober it's a delicate balance and very complicated math i'm sorry again i hope this chapter answers some questions or whatever i will finish this i really will
> 
> also i'm gonna go back and edit some of the previous chapters so they glue together better + i know there's some majorly wacky prose
> 
> as always, no beta and all mistakes are there for your amusement! thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emma’s not a wreck – she’s absolutely _not –_ and she certainly doesn't cry in bed at night. Instead, she busies herself with essays and research and plugs her frustratingly quiet phone into its charger. By 10 pm she’s exhausted by the silence, her eyes sting like _hell_ and everything still sucks, so she abandons her not-being-a-wreck paperwork and crawls into bed.

Ruby calls just as she wakes the next morning. Emma can’t even be surprised, somehow Ruby always knows.

“You didn’t call me last night,” she starts, accusing.

Emma rubs at her crusty eyes with the heel of her palm, slipping back under the covers after a hopeful look towards Regina’s side of the room. Nope.

She sighs. “I thought you were gonna call me.”

Ruby scoffs loudly, it’s honestly a little much. “Oh _please,_ now tell me what happened before I have to drag it out of you.”

“You know, you used to be romantic,” Emma grumbles, laying her arm over her eyes, blocking out the sun and the room and the world. Ruby’s voice is still clear, firm and slightly mocking in her ear, “Ha. Ha. Tell me what I want to know, Swan.”

“Bar guy is cool, I think he’s my friend.”

“What?”

Emma flops onto her stomach and abandons the prospect of darkness as cover. With Ruby’s incessant chirping and Henry’s sudden appearance at the end of her bed, it’s not like she could wallow properly anyway. Not that she’s wallowing.

“I can’t really tell you the whole story over the phone, Ruby,” she answers weakly, grimacing slightly when Henry forgoes his kitty fortress in favor of sharply scaling her hip and resting heavily on her lower back.

“Are you and Regina still hooking up?”

Emma gnaws at her lip, unsure how to answer. She hasn’t really talked to Regina in almost three days. “It’s complicated,” she mumbles.

“Fine, come to my room at one thirty and tell me everything, Emma Swan.”

“Seriously, you used to take me out to dinner.”

Emma can practically feel Ruby rolling her eyes.

“I’m hanging up now.”

Henry crawls off as she tosses her phone aside. He nuzzles against her cheek adoringly and she scratches that familiar spot behind his ear. It’s comforting sure, but it doesn’t feel right, not when Regina isn't across the room or lying beside her or sitting primly in her chair sternly telling her not to let Henry onto their beds.

The anger that wells up inside her stomach comes quick as it always has, ever since she was old enough not to believe in karma. A few years ago, she’d probably have gotten drunk and found someone to punch. Now it only drains her, simmering slow and hot under her skin, blistering her insides. She could scream, she realizes, but Regina wouldn't hear anyway.

 

-

 

Getting dressed and walking to Ruby’s dorm is almost torture. She endures it only because Ruby loves her and wants everything to be okay. No matter how many years she spends having enough, Emma will never quite take that for granted.

She gets a text right as she pushes past the doors to her sister’s hall.

_15 min late, ASSHOLE prof, mm cn open door 4 u sry :(_

Emma grins at the emoticon, mostly because Ruby has never upgraded from middle school text speech. She shoots back a response and waits for MM to come jogging down the steps as always, apologizing sweetly for taking less than a minute to come get her. Five minutes pass before Emma grows anxious and decides just to slip behind a random girl juggling five bags of groceries, then it’s another ten minutes helping the girl pick up bruised oranges before she’s at Ruby and Mary Margaret’s door.

Her hand is poised to knock when the door swings open and a woman in an incredibly familiar pea coat roughly pushes past her. The door slams shut while Emma stands frozen, having caught a glimpse of a red eyed Mary Margaret on the other side. Her first instinct, of course, is to grab Regina’s rapidly retreating arm.

“What are you doing here?” Emma asks, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Nothing,” Regina hisses, harsh and dangerous. She seems calm, as regal as always. Her clicking heel however, is a dead giveaway. Regina wants to get away, probably fast, which is exactly the opposite of what Emma intends to give her. Maybe it’s finally time for some answers.

Regina glares and tugs her arm out of Emma’s hold. They stare tensely at each other.

The fight drains out of Emma quickly and she kind of hates how she still wants to wrap her arms around Regina, even when she appears out of nowhere and decides to be cryptic and annoying. As suddenly as it comes, the tightness in Emma’s chest loosens. She tentatively reaches out to slide her hand down Regina’s forearm until they’re loosely holding hands. Regina doesn't protest.

“Are you okay?”

Regina’s eyes soften. Her eyeliner is a little smudged, the hardness in her gaze making her wild and unapproachable only seconds ago. Now she only looks weary, the purple under her eyes more prominent. She still tugs her hand out of Emma’s.

“I need to go,” she says gruffly, straightening her coat. Emma notices it’s the same outfit as before, three days in a row. _Unbelievable._   She tries to remember those breathing exercises a mandated therapist taught her when she was 15 – until she remembers that instead of reading over the pamphlet he gave her, she used it as kindling to set the therapists couch on fire when he tried to touch her ass.

“I’m trying to be nice to you Regina, so stop being such a bitch, would you?” She flinches at her own words, regretting them the second they leave her mouth. Habits die hard.

“Stop sticking your nose into places where it’s not appreciated, Miss Swan,” is the swift comeback thrown in her face.

Sometimes it feels like Regina is burning to fight, to prove to herself and to Emma and to everyone who’s eavesdropping that she will always be the one to walk away unscathed. She smirks at Emma, the damnable kind that tells her she’s already been thrust into the ring. She knows she’ll come out bleeding and battered with Regina Mills as her opponent, but the way her heart is beating hard tells her she’ll leave a few scratches of her own.

“That’s funny,” Emma sneers, her palms itching. “I could've sworn you were begging me to do the opposite just a few days ago.”

She can tell she’s hit a sore spot when a tinge of pretty, poisonous red stains the tops of Regina’s ears. Emma’s heart swells and curls, it’s satisfying and it hurts. If Regina is down for the count, she manages to crawl back up in a matter of seconds. At full height, she’s precise and determined, intent on slaughtering her enemy. Though Emma is still several inches taller, the venom in Regina’s voice makes up for it with ease. 

“If you can’t handle a consensual agreement between two adults then perhaps we should end our transaction.”

“So now it’s a _transaction?_ Great, that’s awesome, now I’m a hooker?”

“You’re being unreasonably crass, Miss Swan, I don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t have time for _you_ ,” Emma spits, trembling subtly with anger and hurt and _how did this escalate so quickly?_

“Then we’re agreed,” Regina says tersely, lips pinched into a thin line. Each word comes out shallow and breathy, almost shaky.

“I don’t believe I’ll be in tonight. Please feed Henry and have a wonderful night, Miss. Swan.”

Regina turns quickly and leaves. Emma stands stock still until she hears the stairwell door click shut, then slouches against the nearest wall. She’s never felt like such trash – not even after she’d taken Stacy Kirk’s virginity at 17 in the backseat of a stolen Volvo, promptly left town in a panic and refused to ever think about it again.

She just knows, with certainty, that Regina was about to cry.

 

-

 

“I killed Regina’s boyfriend,” Mary Margaret confesses, sobbing softly into her handkerchief.

It’d come unprompted. One minute Emma was asking Mary Margaret if she was alright, the next Ruby’s roommate was telling Emma about her sordid history with Regina. She didn't even realize they knew each other.

“We lived next door to each other when we were kids, I guess we still do,” MM says. “I admired her so much, Emma. She was so good at everything, so pretty and smart. I thought she was a princess.”

Emma pats MM’s shoulder because it seems like the thing to do. She doesn't really know who she’s trying to soothe.

“I followed her to camp as soon as I was old enough. I didn't mean to ruin things for her and Daniel, I was only 13 when I told my dad about them. I didn't know.”

“Didn't know what?” Emma asks gently. The question comes without rational thought, even though Emma knows she shouldn't _know_ , not like this.

Mary Margaret seems to break down further at her query, her gentle sobbing becoming full on blubbering. It takes a mug of peppermint tea and more patting for her to calm down enough to continue. “I didn't know her mother didn't approve, I didn't know my dad would tell her. I really didn't – I thought Daniel was a prince and they were meant to be together. He was such a nice guy, so good with the horses and the kids at camp.”

Emma should leave now, has no idea how to process any of this and has no business knowing at all. Her brain tells her it’s insane to be jealous of a dead person, to be so insensitive – but then again, her brain had also told her Regina was an evil, heartless wench so she really can’t trust any of her internal organs.

“When her mother found out, she wanted to run away. She trusted me, probably because I followed her around so much as a kid. She–she didn't know I told my dad about Daniel or that he’d told her mother. That’s probably why she told me, she even gave me a going-away present,” MM looks to her desk, her eyes landing on a porcelain horse. It sits prominently on her shelf, dead centre. Regina obviously still means a lot to Mary Margaret, despite everything.

“I panicked, I didn't want her to leave,” MM looks down at her hands, twisted together in her lap. “I loved her, she was like the sister I’d never had, almost like a mother figure.”

Emma nods, going from patting to rubbing. Rubbing is more calming, Emma thinks. Ruby had told her in a drunken text once that she and her roommate had bonded over their shared lack of a mother. Ruby’s parents passed away in a car accident when she was too young to remember, but she’d always had Granny, and eventually Emma, who made up for enough, then more than enough for Ruby to leave her resentment behind. Not everybody has a Granny and then an Emma. MM has Regina, or rather, _had_.

“It was winter, I think Mrs. Mills called the police and they sent a patrol car after them. Daniel lost control of the steering wheel and crashed into the railing on the highway. He– Regina was in the hospital for a really long time.”

MM swallows thickly and Emma can guess at how often she’d visited Regina, how she was rebuffed when Regina was strong enough to do it herself, because no one else would. “My dad told me Mrs. Mills sent her here because she didn't trust Regina to be out of state.”

“Did you come here to apologize?” Emma asks, her intuition confirmed when MM nods slowly.

“I waited a few months to approach her. I thought I’d try just one more time, I’d been apologizing for years now but after David I kind of knew there was no way she’d forgive me.”

Something about that name pings in Emma’s head. Her eyes widen when it all comes together. _No damn way_. The look Emma can’t contain must alert Mary Margaret. She starts sobbing again, fat tears streaking down her face.

“You know,” she whimpers, never accusatory. Emma nods, another suspicion turned truth. The father of Kathryn’s baby, Daniel’s death, following Regina to a crappy state college.

“It’s a lot to forgive, I asked for too much.”

Emma retracts her hand from her shoulder, Mary Margaret cries harder. She pats MM’s thigh kindly, but doesn't disagree.

 

-

 

Emma’s in bed again, mulling over the most emotionally exhausting day she’s had in a very, very long time. As promised, Regina does not come home. So Emma mulls and mulls and mulls.

Moments after MM stopped crying that afternoon, Ruby had come rushing in spewing apologies until the atmosphere of the room stopped her. She’d stood observing for a moment before going to her corner of the room, tossing Emma her borrowed jacket and taking them both out to a quiet dinner. Ruby had the habit of never asking questions when wounds were raw, something she practiced from her early days with Emma. Instead, she treaded lightly and held the sutures together as best she could. She was good like that.

Emma had left them for her dorm after dinner with a thankful hug for Ruby and a pat on the shoulder for MM. At her eyes welling up with tears almost instantly, Emma bolted.

Laying in the dark, she realizes her opinion of Mary Margaret hasn't changed. She’s still as gentle as when they first met, still as kind and still a friend. She still likes Mary Margaret a lot, only now the truth lingers in the back of her mind.

Sometimes she feels like she’s filtering Regina through a piece of glass, greasy and smudged from the untruths they deal each other. With each exchange between them, she sees better. Blurred shadows become Regina’s lips, pulled tight to reveal a smile Emma occasionally thinks is just for her. Undefined features become Regina’s cheekbones, sharp and cutting at first glance but soft and inviting when she lets you close enough to touch.

Pieces don't make a whole picture and Regina never allows Emma to reach her for more than a few moments before pulling away. But now, Emma knows those scarce instances mean _more_. She doesn't know how much more – and she’s not exactly willing to hope. She wants Regina to tell her of her own volition, wants Regina to confide and seek comfort in her. Most importantly, she wants Regina here, with her.

 

-

 

Regina comes back to the dorm on the sixth day.

She’s finally out of her outfit from Thursday, which is good, because it’s Wednesday. The way the sweats she’s wearing drag on the carpet tell Emma they’re Graham’s and not Kathryn’s. The formfitting tee sporting the motivational slogan “keep hanging on!” while a cat hangs onto a bar featured above the text has to belong to the latter.

Regina shoots her a bone chilling glare when Emma snorts at her attire.

It feels almost normal, Henry taps hurriedly towards Regina, cuddling against her heeled foot (“Heels and sweats, Regina? Very haute couture.” “ _Be quiet._ ”). The mood is so light, Emma doesn't want to ruin it. Anyway, Regina seems adamantly set against talking about anything, if the silent way she undresses and dresses again means anything. Their argument in the hallway, their meeting with Neal at brunch, her absence for six whole days; none of it seems real when Regina is back.

Emma is so lost in the thought of how much she’s missed Regina that she doesn't really hear it until she looks up and the subject of almost all her daydreams is staring right at her.

“What?”

Regina looks torn between repeating and not repeating herself, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “If this is some kind of ruse to get me to say it again, you will probab–“

“I didn't hear you, Regina. Seriously, it’s as simple as that.”

Sitting up, Emma swings her legs over the side of her bed and watches Regina carefully watch her. Slowly, she moves closer, until she’s sitting beside Emma on her bed. Regina’s close enough for Emma to feel her body heat, even though they aren't touching. It was a joke in their earlier days, how physically warm Regina was despite her frosty demeanor. Emma used to laugh about how clever she was, now she just thinks it’s apt.

“I said I’m sorry,” Regina mumbles, hands clasped tight against the edge of her bed. Emma is thoroughly surprised, not only at the fact that Regina didn't clearly enunciate every single word but that Regina shifts her hand over so her left bumps against Emma’s right.

“For my absence and my behavior, I was… surprised by an old… acquaintance of mine on Thursday, it sent me on a bit of a tailspin.”

Emma nods, slips her pinky over Regina’s. She doesn't pull away and Emma considers it a victory.

“I know.”

“Know what?”

Hesitation mutes Emma, her whole hand over Regina’s now, knuckles pressing against palm. She wants to twine their fingers together. Before she can, Regina twists her hand. Emma is afraid she’s preparing to pull away until she feels Regina’s palm against her own, fingers interlacing. Their synchronous thought and action gives her a bit of courage, to just push through, to clear the air so they might finally start again on a clean slate.

“Mary Margaret kind of told me everything,” Emma admits.

Regina hand stiffens and she pulls away. Emma begins to panic, forcing down her natural urge to run. “She had no right,” she says, staring at the place where two hands were knit together only seconds ago, where one still lays. Regina narrows her eyes at Emma. “ _You_ had no right.”

“I know, I really know. I’m so sorry.”

Emma’s practically begging, both hands in the space between them, but Regina’s eyes are still hard and she’s still much further away on the bed than she was minutes ago. “You violated my privacy,” she growls.

“I didn't mean to, I really didn't,” Emma says, hoping Regina hears the sincerity in her voice. Hoping Kathryn told her about coming over, about thinking Emma was different, about Emma being _good_ for her. Mary Margaret had only filled in the blanks to the story she’d already been told, Emma hopes Regina sees it that way too.

Regina’s shoulders sag. Her posture slackens, though her spine remains as straight as ever, as if she’s taught her body to keep her going, keep her standing, even when her mind and spirit are spent.

“I’m very tired, Emma.”

Her heart hurts, her head hurts. “I’m sorry about that too,” Emma says, but Regina is still away.

She doesn't know what to say to the veil of tension slowly pushing them apart, filling the spaces between their bodies. The air isn't clear and the slate keeps getting dirtier.

“Before MM told me, I thought you were mad about the guy at the bar.”

“I was.”

Regina never fails to surprise her. “You were?” she asks, absolutely not expecting such a direct answer. The girl on her bed narrows her eyes again, looks straight at her again.

“Of course I was,” she snaps.

How did she expect Emma to have known?

Nonsensical nodding and a slightly bewildered, “right…” is the astute response Regina receives. Surprise tends to cloud Emma’s thought processes. 100 miles a minute is how fast Emma’s mind is not going when the pause gradually gives way to awkward silence. Regina must take this as some sort of hint to explain herself.

Her shoulders are square again when she says, “What I said in the hallway outside Snow’s room, I said in a bout of anger. I’d like to continue our agreement and I don’t think you’re – as you so tastelessly alleged – a hooker.”

“So you want to keep doing… this thing?” Emma asks, hope blooming like a flower in her chest.

“Feel free to continue your dalliance with that-” Regina pauses, Emma knows it takes a lot out of her not to call Neal a horrendous name, “-person. As long as I can trust you to be safe and not gift me some venereal disease. I won’t ask and –“

The hope in her chest shrivels under the hot, hot heat of her frustration. “I won’t either? God, Regina, you have some nerve!”

Regina is obviously taken aback. Her arms cross over her chest. “Why are you angry? I’m giving you the freedom you crave, you can have your cake and eat it too.”

Emma sputters and almost yells. Where was this crap coming from? She’s been following Regina through a minefield for ages, hoping against hope she’d finally make it to shelter and security. The belief she'll make it to Regina dims with every second Regina refuses to look back at her, to hold her hand. She is so frustrated, she wonders why she hasn't thrown up or imploded yet.

“I don’t – God! It’s like speaking to a – Regina, you can’t leave, come back after you spend almost a week at your fuck-buddy’s place then expect me to bend to your will!”

Regina clams up but she refuses to raise her voice. They both know it’s because Regina thinks it gives her an edge, to be the shore to a chaotic tide. It would work if that metaphor didn't mean something entirely different to Emma.

“You’re the one who decided to go home with a stranger while I watched,” Regina states, betraying no emotion.

“You were all over Graham! What was I supposed to do? Just sit there and watch you go home with _him_?”

If Emma could spare a moment to be impressed, she would be amazed by how deep and steady a breath Regina takes. “I was not ‘ _all over Graham’_ , he was my friend before he was anything else and I was not intending to go home with anybody but _you_.”

God, how Emma wishes Regina had told her that before she got piss drunk with Neal. She can’t help the sinking of her most vital organ, the way sadness creeps into her voice, how small she sounds when she says, “But you did, you went home with him.”

Regina doesn't seem to pity her, or if she does, she doesn't show it. It's a recurring defense of Regina's, one Emma can't seem to penetrate. The only indication of her feeling anything at all is the way her jaw twitches. She takes another calming breath, as deep as the one before, turning away just as Emma glances at her. “Yes, I did, after you’d gone with that oaf and Blanchard appeared like an unwelcome ghost from my past to beg for forgiveness. Graham and Kathryn were there, you were not.”

Logically, Emma knows it’s her fault for not just asking. Logically, she knows it’s Regina’s fault for not just telling her. Logically, she knows they could save each other a lot of heartache if they weren't so stubborn and stupid and stubborn. If they’d stop talking circles around problems. Logically.

“I’m so sick of fighting with you, Regina,” Emma admits. She doesn't know much more of what to say, it all comes out wrong anyway. She’s so tired of how tired Regina is, because of her, because of herself. They should be happy, in the honeymoon stages of a healthy relationship. Three quarters of the time, Emma is _so_ happy. The last quarter she spends trying to figure out how to make Regina feel the same.

“Then agree with me,” Regina answers, looking almost desperate for Emma to concede, like it would break her if Emma decided she wanted Regina just to herself.

“Okay,” Emma agrees weakly, pulling Regina’s hand into her own. She’s beginning to understand what makes Regina happy; tenuous connections, control, space. Winning.

She pulls Regina into her, kisses her, pulls at her clothes. At least this much of herself, Regina will give to her.   


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS FIC IS ALIVE!!!!! hi y'all and sorry and have i apologized in every chapter note of this story? maybe.  
> anyway, this is the last chapter!! the next one will be an epilogue so rest yer weary heads, my friends, cause i will get that to you before another however many months pass. promise!! as always, no beta. mistakes! thanks! also i love your comments and kudos, thanks for those too.
> 
> this chapter title is probably: thy melodrama has come to pass #bless

Winter break comes with a flurry. Emma and Ruby go home while Regina opts to stay at the open residence for obvious horrifying-mom-type reasons.

She and Emma have barely spoken in the days following their reconciliation, though everything’s gone back to normal, they can’t seem to speak about what they mean to each other at all, and the awkward space they can’t fill with the physical is spent on cat concerns and shallow bantering.

Still, her phone is stuck to her hand, texts flying back and forth between Chicago and CSU at a rate that annoys Granny and alarms Ruby. She watches Emma try to discreetly text under the counter; Granny’s already reprimanded her more than once today.

“Are you sure you’re not dating?”

“Stop it, you know we’re not,” Emma answers, not bothering to look up. Ruby comes around the counter and swipes the phone out of her hands. The last text from Regina is simply a knife emoji.

She shakes her head, doesn't bother feigning pain when Emma grabs it from her and punches her arm. “I don’t know anything. Your relationship confuses me more than Stats 101,” she says, exasperated by a relationship that’s not hers – but that she’s way too invested in.

“You need to study more.”

Ruby sticks out her tongue, pretending to make out furiously with her hand. “You need to stop sucking face with your roommate,” she points out, smug.

Emma scowls, but the phone she stole back vibrates and she’s smiling again, engrossed.

She finds herself humming like a fool at the counter for the rest of the day, even when Ruby sighs loudly before whirling away in a rush of red. Emma’s good mood persists until after the lunch rush, until the memory of their goodbye turns itself into her mind.

She frowns as she replays every moment. Being spontaneously kissed goodbye, being pushed into their door, pulling Regina harder into herself. She’d immediately dropped her bag and wound her fingers into Regina’s hair, melting into her as hands gripped her hips, hard enough to leave red marks but soft enough for Emma to groan into her mouth.

But then Regina had pulled back after a long minute, looking lost, before snapping into a smirk. She’d let go and stepped back with a quiet goodbye.

Emma looks down at the screen, it’s another knife emoji.

 

-

 

Three weeks later, Emma’s back at school with Regina. To be more specific, she’s back at school _on_ Regina.

And Regina is pliant tonight, letting Emma take the lead. Maybe because it’s been almost three weeks since they've been here, pressed up against each other on Emma’s bed.

Or maybe because Regina is obviously exhausted, having just come back from an intense Skype session with her mother. The dark circles under her eyes are heavy, her limbs weighted into her, suggestive to the amount of sleep she’s lost over a twenty minute call.

So Emma presses soft, chaste kisses to her neck, lingering longer than usual, feeling the vibration of Regina’s quiet, satisfied sighs.

She thinks she might be helping relieve tension, or whatever. Pressing her cheek against Regina’s clavicle, Emma slides her hand to rest innocently against her chest.

“I’m tired,” she mumbles, playing with the collar of Regina’s ridiculously soft and expensive shirt.

Regina smiles, eyes closed. The hand gripping the back of Emma’s neck tightly a minute ago loosens into her hair and strokes it.

“No, you’re not,” Regina says, aware and intuitive even as the toll of the day settles more firmly into her body. She feels Emma’s lips quirk up, imagining the way her cheeks dimple. It helps. “But I appreciate what you’re trying to do, dear.”

“I’m not trying to do anything.”

Regina snorts, brushing Emma’s bangs away from her face. Emma’s so frustratingly giving sometimes that it hurts her and makes her feel things she’s not ready to feel. So instead of following through on that thought, she decides to distract herself.

Bending her neck to look at Emma, the corner of Regina’s mouth ticks up in a way she knows will make Emma blush. It succeeds, because the girl’s always been helplessly reactive to her. She can’t help but take advantage when she needs to protect herself, when she needs to protect Emma from her.

“Exactly.”

The implication can’t be lost on Emma Swan, who thrives on taking dirty innuendos and turning them into blatant invitations. Tonight however, Emma just smiles fondly at her, the low thrum of sex drained into an affection even Regina can’t reverse.

There’s no fighting it, so she’ll simply evade, placing a hand on Emma’s hip and pushing.

With no resistance, Emma ends up facing the wall as Regina presses against her back, hands ghosting their way across her hips to wind around her waist.

Her nose fits its way into the crook of Emma’s neck, the perfect hiding spot, the perfect way of keeping Emma far enough away from her. Regina won’t explain, nor will Emma ask, and they drift quietly to sleep, soundless.

 

-

 

A hand delicately places a beer onto the wrinkled coaster in front of Emma. Neal appears seconds later, plodding onto the stool in front of her. It’s a Wednesday and she’d texted him 20 minutes ago in a fury.

“Drink, my friend, for you are royally screwed,” he announces dramatically, taking a large gulp from his own glass.

She heeds his advice, downing half her drink. He winces as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and slams it onto the table. “I panicked.”

“I don’t understand, isn't this what you wanted?”

“I did, I don’t know, maybe?” Emma says, shrugging. She can’t really make eye contact with how self-conscious she’s feeling, so she stares at her own hands resting on the table. “It’s just a different thing when I’m allowed to touch her.”

“You’re a special brand of fucked up, dude.”

Emma glares at him because _she knows,_ though it doesn't mean Neal-the-asshole is allowed an opinion. “Shut up, she’s just as scared as I am.”

Neal gives her a questioning look, his words laced with mockery. “You sure about that?”

“She won’t even let me hold her hand in public.”

Neal doesn't even hesitate, shooting back a pointed, “Have you even tried?”

Emma pauses, sculls the rest of her beer and stares longingly at her empty glass. Her shoulders droop. “No.”

“So how do you know?”

“I just do, okay?” Emma bites, trying to keep the absolute bitterness out of her voice. It doesn't succeed, because it’s Neal and for some reason she can only be friends with people who can measure exactly how depressed she is at all times. “And I knew she was gonna get weird and mean if I stayed, so I left.”

“You don’t know shit, Em, you’re just guessing.”

“She asked for casual, not to be spooned,” Emma says. Neal gives her another look, this one full of plain skepticism. Emma responds with a scowl and an order to the waitress for a second round.

“I’m just saying it never hurts to ask.”

Emma grunts and Neal shrugs, content in peeling at the label of his beer. He keeps her silent company as she struggles with the idea of asking Regina questions outright like a goddamn normal human being.

She thinks about the moment she’d woken up that morning, remembers how she’d come into clarity with Regina breathing softly against her neck.

Sure, Regina’s hair had been in her mouth and up her nose but it was hard to avoid, with Regina practically on top of Emma. Her arms wound around Emma’s waist, fingers wedged between the mattress and her back.

Emma’s own hands were sitting proudly on Regina’s ass, as if somehow, even in her sleep, Emma was a complete perv.

Emma had blushed and felt her ears get hot. It was pretty great, more intimate than they’d ever been, and a marvel, not having to wake up alone wishing to be on the other side of the room.

Then the panic had struck. Regina would stir at 7:30 like she always did, and then what? Would she be angry Emma hadn't woken her up? Would she lash out because this was too intimate? Too close? Would she blame Emma?

When she’d successfully imagined the worst scenario possible, Emma had untangled Regina from her, slithered out from the sheets and bolted from the room faster than her conscious could keep up. She didn't dare check her phone, didn't even text Ruby, and just went straight to Neal.

The words she’d imagined ring in her ear. “What if she tells me it’s over?” Emma asks quietly.

She looks up at Neal, who looks her in the eye with a cross between pity and sympathy.

Then he orders tequila shots.

 

-

 

It’s one in the morning and Emma still hasn't come home. Regina knows she’s alive and safe – and drunk, based on the almost incomprehensible texts she receives every half an hour.

Her phone buzzes again, right on the dot.

 _sssk frns outtt saaaaaaaaafe gooooooood,_ it reads.

Regina bites at her bottom lip, doesn't bother responding to Emma’s text and instead, asks Kathryn if she’s still awake.

Not too long later, she’s climbing into Graham’s car, with a worried Graham glancing over at her every few minutes.

“Eyes on the road, Humbert,” she says, and that gets his tense shoulders to relax, and that stupid smirk to come back.

“Yes, ma’am.”

When they arrive at his and Kathryn’s shared apartment, Kathryn is in her fluffy robe making them all tea. She grins when Graham grabs his mug, jingles his keys at her and leaves for his room so, “you girls will have some privacy to talk about how hot I am.”

Regina finds her place on the end of their couch and Kathryn joins her on the other end, both of them blowing at the steam from their tea. It’s Regina’s favorite because Kathryn is the kind of person who stocks her friends favorite teas, even if she doesn't particularly care for them.

“You okay?” Kathryn asks, peering over the edge of her cup.

Regina grimaces, says, “Emma didn't come home tonight.”

“Full story,” Kathryn demands, placing her mug on the coffee table, sliding her legs down the couch until they’re touching Regina’s.

“I may or may not have implied several weeks ago that Graham and I are still…” She gets cut off, Kathryn’s eyes wide. “Oh Regina, you didn't!”

She flinches, holds her mug firmly and looks into the amber liquid. She’s not proud of what she’s said or how she’s handled the situation. “I didn't want to seem… needy”

“What else?”

“Hmm?”

Kathryn shimmies closer, until her legs are folded and she can prop her chin onto her shins. “Emma is Emma, she wouldn't be so willy nilly about spending the night out if you didn’t say something.”

Regina clears her throat. “I also may have implied that I wanted a friends with benefits scenario.”

“And that isn’t what you want?” Kathryn asks. Regina glares at her; _of course_ this isn’t what she wants. She wants Emma.

“Tell her then,” Kathryn suggests, as if it were really that simple, to tell someone how she feels, when there is no guarantee that any of her feelings will be reciprocated.

“I can’t just tell her.”

Kathryn makes a choked sound between a sigh and a groan. “Fine, don’t tell her,” she snaps, and adds, “Just stay unhappy until Emma meets someone who will actually tell her how they feel and they’ll get married and you’ll have to settle for Graham.”

“Kathryn!”

The thought of Emma touching someone else that way is horrifying, making Regina cringe and furrow her brow. Imagining Emma in a wedding dress, however, makes her panic in a different way altogether.

She’s spent so long trying to protect herself after Daniel, after seeing what love could do to her that she’s now realized she never bothered to think about how she could hurt someone else. She could hurt Emma, has hurt Emma and doesn't know how to begin to fix it.

Her friend shrugs. “What? Tough love, Reggie.”

“Do not call me that.”

Kathryn shrugs again and Regina throws a cushion at her just to shut her up.

“Whatever, Reggie.”

 

-

 

Emma spends the night at Neal’s place, shooting the shit with him and his roommate, Belle.

She’s completing her masters to become a librarian and the first thing Emma learns about her is how she used to have a thing with Neal’s super rich, super neglectful dad, which Neal just kind of shrugs off.

Other than the super creepy fact, she’s cool, and they spend most of the night sloppily doing shots and singing dreadfully along to Paul Simon.

When she manages to stumble back in the harsh morning light, Regina is sitting primly at her desk, stabbing viciously at her keyboard – though it doesn't mean much, because Emma knows it’s how she always types.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Regina doesn't look her way, which Emma has only just realized she does when she’s feeling something she can’t hide.

“Sorry I didn't come home last night.”

“I’m not your mother; you don’t need to explain yourself to me.” Regina’s response is short and clipped and makes Emma anxious, clogs her throat and makes her tongue feel thick in her mouth.

“Okay,” Emma nods, leaning against the closed door of their room. She plays with the helm of her jacket and nervously asks, “Are you mad? Because you didn't come home for a week and I've been gone a whole twelve hours, which is way less than seven days.”

“It was six days and no, I am not,” Regina answers tersely. She’s totally lying, given away by how her hands hover over her keyboard, hands clenching and unclenching. Regina wants to apologize, but the words swirl around her head and can’t seem to find their way out. Finally, she asks, “Were you with him?”

It comes out bitter and sharp.

“Who? Neal? Yeah, we just chilled.”

“Right, like we… chill.” Regina frowns and her eyes mist over. She refuses to blink, staring stoically at her screen. That twisty, awful feeling claws its way into Emma’s gut.

“You know I’m not sleeping with Neal, right?” Emma blurts out, taking a step forward. This is her opening to talk, and she’s sick of letting Regina protect herself when all it does is the opposite.

“It’s not my business, Miss Swan,” Regina says stubbornly.

It hits her then that Neal was right, she doesn’t know shit, and Emma didn’t understand before, but she thinks she does now. She was wrong all along. Regina doesn't care most about winning at all. She’s too frightened of losing to hold on too tightly, and having in any way she can as long as she can is her method of coping.

They’re so stupid – it’s so stupid – how alike they can be sometimes.

Emma stands her ground. “Cut it out Regina. It’s just you, there’s no one else.”

Regina stays quiet and Emma can feel the tears rise up her throat as the silence grows. But she’s certain she’s not wrong, that this miscommunication has been equally heartbreaking and idiotic for both of them.

Emma’s close to losing it when she hears Regina say, softly, “Me too.” And when she looks up, Regina is smiling at her – that crooked one that might be a secret to everybody but her.

It doesn't take a minute for Emma to move two steps forward and for Regina to meet her in the middle.

 

-

 

They’re in bed, naked, Emma spooning Regina from behind because though Regina has the presence of a six foot four linebacker, she’s actually the tiniest woman maybe ever.

She also fidgets, tracing Emma’s fingers over her right hand with her left. Emma stays quiet and waits, all the things they’ve bottled up inside seem to be coming out in spurts now, like all the champagne’s been uncorked and they’re getting drunk off the truth.

“You left this morning,” Regina says.

“I was scared you’d be mad,” Emma admits, kissing Regina’s shoulder blade and resting her chin on it.

“About?”

“Being in bed, with me.”

Regina twists her head around, forcing Emma off her shoulder and onto her back. “That’s the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me,” she says, “And you once told me you loved Kanye West.”

“He’s a lyrical genius, Regina, don’t be such a snob,” Emma says, punctuating her response with a kiss. It feels freeing, being able to kiss Regina how she wants.

“You’re an idiot.” It comes out warm and fond and Regina’s hands rest on either side of Emma’s head, her hair shielding them from the light.

This time, instead of letting Regina close the distance, Emma reaches up and brushes her bangs back, keeping her hands on Regina’s cheeks so that the hair stays in place. She strokes Regina’s cheeks with her thumbs.

She opens her mouth, but Regina beats her to it. “I should’ve asked you to stay,” she says seriously.

“I should’ve asked _you_ to stay,” Emma repeats. She maneuvers Regina off her lap so that they’re facing each other on the bed. Their legs tangle together underneath the blanket and their hands rest side by side on the pillow, touching.

“I know it’s hard for you to be with someone, it’s hard for me to be with you sometimes too.”

“Then why are you?” Regina asks, too quickly. It’s a sore subject, they both know, and Regina is always ready to defend herself. Emma, of all people, understands that some habits last a lifetime.

She grins, kisses Regina’s nose, her cheek, her forehead, and then pulls back. “Have you looked at you?”

“ _Emma_.”

She’s never heard her name said with so much affection. More than anything, she wants to find out how many ways Regina can say her name, how many ways she can make Emma beautiful.

The smile drops off her face. Emma wants Regina to be sure of what she’s about to say, because she’s sure now, thinks she’s been sure for a while.

“Hey,” Emma says slowly, “I might love you.”

It’s the first time she’s told anyone romantically that she might love them and it stops her heart and gives her an adrenaline rush all at the same time. She waits, not breaking eye contact even though she desperately wants to bury her head into Regina’s chest.

They’re both very still for a few moments, before Regina kisses Emma like how Emma had kissed her minutes ago. Her nose first, her cheek, then her forehead before pulling back, Regina’s smile sweet and gentle.

“Me too,” she says, not uncertain at all, and Emma relaxes.

They have a lot more to talk about and it’s not exactly a declaration of love, but it fills her heart right up. Regina isn’t ready for overt vows about love and Emma isn’t either, but for now, admitting they care about each other is enough.

They kiss languidly for little while longer, and when Emma leans back, Regina is looking at her with bright, adoring eyes.

And it’s okay; she doesn't need Regina shouting her love off the rooftop just quite yet.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the alt title of this epilogue is: finally, finally, kathryn can chill.

“So, are you my girlfriend?” Emma asks one sunny Saturday afternoon.

They’re lying on their respective beds, Regina working on a novel she’s been meaning to get to for ages and Emma lying flat and stiff, hands pressed against her chest, weakly feigning nonchalance for the last thirty minutes.

She puts her book down, stares at Emma, who is trying hard not to stare at her. “What?”

“I mean, Archie asked me the other day and I didn’t know,” Emma explains, rolling onto her side to face Regina. She bites her lip, and even from the distance of a whole room, it makes Regina want to bite it too. It’s all very distracting. She shakes her head. “Archie? The nervous cricket who lives on the third floor?”

Emma scrambles into a seated position, defensive. “Hey, he’s my friend.”

Hearing that tone of voice from Emma used to make Regina’s heart constrict a little, but now it makes her smirk because Emma is just _so_ easy. “Well, tell him to mind his own business,” she says as she makes her way over to the other side of the room. With nary a warning, she’s straddling Emma.

“Okay,” Emma says, not minding a bit. Her eyes go soft and stupid in an instant, her hands on Regina’s hips, steadying her.

Regina bends over, touching her lips to Emma’s. When she pulls away, Emma tries to follow and is gently stopped with a finger. “And Miss Swan, if that was your way of asking me to be your girlfriend, you need to work on your presentation.”

 

-

 

It takes a few weeks before Emma musters up the courage to hold Regina’s hand. It’s all kind of embarrassing; the way she’s been staring between the two of them every time they go out, willing her stupid hand to move and hold and stay.

When she finally makes contact, the tips of her fingers sliding against Regina’s warm palm, she sort of expects Regina to startle, to reject her in surprise. Instead, Regina doesn’t react much at all but to clasp her fingers around Emma’s, and they quietly walk hand in hand all the way to brunch.

When they arrive, Kathryn looks to their hands and raises her eyebrow at them both, all knowing and haughty smirks.

Emma grins back. They’re being quiet about this new thing, afraid to startle the peace that’s begun to settle over them. Of course it’s then that Graham breezes back from the bathroom just in time to catch them coming in. Without an ounce of restraint, he loudly announces, “Hand holding? Nice!” and gives them both thumbs up.

She’s about to tell Graham to shove it when Regina squeezes her hand and shuts her up. Emma turns to Regina, who in turn gives Kathryn a look. Graham is promptly smacked in the back of the head.

“Ow! You’re all so goddamn violent,” Graham says, rubbing at the spot.

Kathryn pushes at him as Emma snickers. “If you didn’t run your mouth all the time, maybe the violence wouldn’t be directed towards you,” she says.

Graham narrows his eyes at all of them and Kathryn laughs, bright and clear. Regina chuckles low in her throat and suddenly the noise quiets into nothing and Emma is consumed by so much joy she can barely breathe.

It’s an odd feeling, wanting to stay exactly where she is when she’s so overwhelmed with emotion. In the past, it would suffocate her, lead her to a different place; now it feels like this is where she’s supposed to be. It’s safety – warmth, anchored by Regina’s hand and Graham and Kathryn’s friendship.

Under the noise of Graham’s howling and Kathryn’s friendly chastising, Regina leans into her. “Are you alright?” she asks quietly, noticing Emma’s sudden stillness, and Emma breaks their unspoken rules and kisses her on the cheek because she just _can’t not_. When she pulls back, Regina’s eyes are shining and her smile is real and it’s what Regina’s love is like, quiet and sincere and intense, hidden underneath layers of stone and hurt and bravery.

“I’m great.”

 

-

 

It’s another lazy weekend; the ones Regina is gladly beginning to think will last forever. Emma has been restless the whole day, alternating between squirming in silence and pouting loudly at her.

Finally, Emma sighs and asks, “Why do I have to ask you?”

“Ask me what?”

“To be my girlfriend, why can’t you ask me?”

Regina spins around in her chair, waves her hand over herself like Vanna White. “Look at me Emma, I don’t ask for anything.”

“You’re the worst.”

“You chose me.”

“Yeah,” Emma says, warm and willing and glad. The way Emma’s goofy smile is directed at her makes her feel like her heart might explode, like maybe Emma _did_ choose her, like she chose Emma.

Regina clears her throat and looks away, still feeling Emma’s gaze on her as she tries to tamp down her ridiculous blush. Emma Swan has made her into a willing, saccharine fool.

She doesn’t really mind, to be perfectly honest.

 

-

 

Kathryn is elated. She watches them on the couch, sitting side by side, thighs and arms touching. They’re not conspicuous now that they’re actually together; it’s never been Regina’s style. There’s never any sort of PDA but some hand holding and the occasional kiss on the cheek. Even now, in the safety of Kathryn and Graham’s apartment, they keep their hands to themselves. But Kathryn can tell Regina’s much happier now than she’s been in a long time. The joy almost seems to radiate from her, making her approachable in ways her sadness cloaked.

She observes from the kitchen, slowly making drinks for them all. Ruby arrived not too long ago, feet up and snuggled into their armchair. Every once in a while they catch each other’s eyes and smile, as if they were long-suffering parents who’ve finally seen their short-sighted children learn to be happy, learn to begin again.

“You know we can see you two giving each other looks like, every thirty seconds, right?” Emma asks, righteous and trying to gain Henry the cat’s attention by poking his nose every few minutes. He pushes her hand away every time, not in the mood and Regina snickers beside her, stroking Henry as he lays belly up on her lap.

Ruby rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue for Henry and frowns when he doesn’t even spare her a look, satisfied with his current position in life. “We had to suffer through your angst ridden looks for months so you can just be quiet about our looks of mutually pleased best friendship, ok?”

“I resent the accusation of angst. We were figuring out our feelings, it’s very normal,” Regina counters.

“Yeah, resent,” Emma uselessly adds. Ruby smirks, because she knows at this point Emma should’ve already been out of her seat, gesticulating about relationships and tribulations and it’s only Regina’s other hand on her thigh that placates her, settles her down.

The quiet way they’ve begun to revolve around each other, like they can’t ever stop coming back to each other, to be close, makes Ruby less scared for Emma. She’s so glad, glad that Emma may finally be ready to stop running, like she’s been running all this time to get here.

“You guys can try to rewrite the story however you want, but Henry knows, doesn’t he?” she says.

At his name, Henry meows, sliding out from under Regina’s hand and jumping up into Ruby’s lap. Agreeing with her, probably.

“The cat’s a traitor,” Emma sighs dramatically, pouting at Regina. Only Regina gives Henry one stern look and he’s back where he’s supposed to be, squished up between their laps, nuzzling their arms with gusto. “You’ve got to teach me that.”

“Basic parenting, Emma.”

Emma scowls and Kathryn steps out from the kitchen, handing out drinks and accepting thanks. “What matters is these two morons finally got their act together,” she says, and not even Regina can muster a retort.

In silence, they sip from their drinks, quiet and content in the company of friends. Kathryn feels a sense of peace, watching Emma whine and Regina give her adoring looks and Ruby making faces beside them.

And then Graham comes out of his room, stares at them all for three seconds, and shouts, “I’m going to be alone forever!”

 

-

 

Regina’s formal introduction to Neal goes like this:

They go to the bar because it seems as if all of Emma’s most revealing moments must be soundtracked by Graham and the Wolves and accompanied by sticky floors and cloudy bar mist.

Neal, in an old wrinkled tee and ill-advised open toed shoes puts his hand out for Regina to shake. Regina, wearing her usual pea coat and tailored blouse, receives it firmly. They eye each other for ten seconds in tense silence, Emma holding her breath beside them as Ruby tries not to laugh and Kathryn waits it out with a furrowed brow.

Then, it’s Regina who says, “Your father tried to have me study under him.”

To which Neal replies with, “You’d be kind of an idiot to say yes.”

A pause, “Which is why I said no.”

Neal cracks a smile, “You chose a good one, Emma.”

Two hours later, they’re walking home, going along the same path as they did several months ago – before Emma knew why Regina irritated her so much and Regina knew why she wanted to irritate Emma so much.

At the bar, Graham had put on a show as Neal and Regina discussed his dad (who was a professor at the college, apparently). Emma had come back from the bar to find Neal’s arm around a surprisingly unperturbed Regina, their shoulders hunched together over their tiny bar table. A flare of heat had gone through her, making her snipe at Neal the whole night.

She’s apologetic about it now, breathing fresh air, walking hand in hand with Regina. She had wanted them to get along, she really did.

“Neal asked me about my intentions,” Regina says, the corners of her lips upturned. “He asked me if I knew what you’d been through all this time.”

Emma pulls her closer, navigates them around a puddle. “Ignore him; he’s just being a dick.”

“He’s a good friend,” Regina says, giving her a look that meant she had better apologize. She will, of course, probably buy him a pitcher of beer to make up for it, too.

“He also asked me if I intend to make it official anytime soon.”

“Oh,” Emma responds, awkward about a topic she’s brought up several times already. Regina continues, “So I told him we were adults and not teenagers going steady.”

Emma’s face falls, but she doesn’t look at Regina, who is smiling at her. “But we are, aren’t we?” she says, stopping a surprised Emma with a little pull. They’re in front of their building, and Regina waits for Emma to look at her. She’s as red as her skin tone will allow, embarrassed and nervous and thrilled to ask, “Emma Swan, would you like to go steady with me?”

“I thought you never asked for anything?”

“You’re choosing this moment to be a smart ass?”

Emma grins, warmth beginning to flood every part of Regina she’s touching. “I’m always smart,” she says, chin up.

“And always an ass,” Regina reminds her, without bite but with a gentle affection that has Emma pull her closer still.

Emma leans her forehead against Regina’s, wanting to touch her as much as possible. “You chose me,” she says, because she knows they chose each other, and she knows without a doubt now that she’d choose Regina over and over and over again.

“In fact, you want to go steady with me, like a teenager,” she teases.

Regina palms her cheek, “Yes, I did and yes, I do.” She punctuates it by pushing Emma away, smirking at her before heading into their building.

Emma shouts, because she can, “Good, cause that’s what I want to!” and runs after her girlfriend.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy halloween y'all!! this is the epilogue to something that is wild because it was literally written in frantic bursts every four or five months. i wanted a swan queen college au wherein nobody studied and everybody was teenagery and bad at feelings and i think this is what that kind of is, so thank you for being here and having been here and thanks for being nice and leaving your kudos and comments. honestly, the comments are so nice, you are so nice!!!


End file.
